Noriko: Tails of a Fox
by Aljan Moonfire
Summary: The shinobi of the Elemental Nations knew that having power was dangerous - dangerous for your enemies, at least. Some even acknowledged that it could be dangerous for yourself and for your village as well. But having power was a good thing, right? They didn't know that it could be painful too. Uzumaki Noriko would teach them that lesson. Rewrite of Noriko:TB. Rated M to be safe.
1. Prologue (I) - A Family of Shinobi

**Aljan Moonfire does not own Naruto or any other recognizable references.**

* * *

_**Prolouge (I) - A Family of Shinobi**_

* * *

When people, responsible people that is, decide to have children, they swear that they will do all they can to protect their child. That no matter what they will always be there for them. To dry their tears when they cry, to warm them when they're cold, to pick them up when they first fall down, to watch with pride as they learn to do it for themselves. The first word, the first step, the first tantrum , the first kunai throw - though that's really more for shinobi families - when they truly _want_ a child, parents swear in their deepest hearts to be there for it all.

Namikaze Minato, as he finally collapsed beside his new born child, half-on, half-off the ceremonial pedestal, knew that with his last shuddering breath he would do something he had sworn to never do. He would break all of those promises, all at once. A single tear, caught in his eyelashes, trembling over the short fall to the loose, torn earth, displayed his turmoil to the world.

He was in too much pain to notice, or care even if he had.

They were a family of shinobi, he thought wearily as he slowly managed to push himself off the pedestal with the last of his quickly fading strength. He landed heavily on his back – the pain ripped through his torn body once again - beside his unnaturally silent wife. He didn't think he'd ever seen her so still, even when she was sleeping. Kushina was never that still – ever.

He closed his eyes to the unbearable sight, the heavy, silent pain of that realization sinking deep into his chest. The chakra exhaustion, severe blood loss, and the now empty and gaping hole that had been driven through his shoulder and upper torso by the Kyuubi's massive claw were quickly taking the last of their toll on him.

He was dying – he could feel it. Kushina was already dead, he knew. He could hear the wailing of his newborn daughter somewhere above and to the left, where he had settled her mere minutes ago. He so wanted to get up, hold her, comfort her; assure her that everything would be alright, even if it wasn't…but he couldn't. The numb, dead feeling in his furthermost appendages was rapidly spreading.

They were a family of shinobi. He couldn't stop the despairing laugh that welled up in his torn, nigh useless, lungs. The harsh, pained sound was half-choked by a sticky dribble of blood that emerged from the corner of his lips along with it.

He suddenly couldn't think of a worse thing to be a family of.

He was so wrapped in his pain and quickly scattering thoughts that he almost didn't notice when his old mentor and predecessor slowly approached him from the side, his steps as habitually near-silent as ever, but still slow and reluctant. He didn't blame him.

"Hey -" more blood bubbled in his throat as he spoke; he stretched his bloodstained lips out and slightly upwards in a parody of his usual wide grin, "Sarutobi…sama…" Minato gasped, somehow managing to get Third Hokage's surname out even as more blood suddenly spurted again from his most severe and gaping wound.

"Why, Minato?" The other asked over the sounds of the crying child and the dying man's pants. He ignored the silent group of Anbu that had accompanied him and sunk slowly to his knees beside his successor. "Why didn't you let any of us help you…?"

Minato hesitated to speak for a long moment, before his eyes hardened; even in his nearly helpless state the Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure answered slowly, his steady words obstructed by his injuries. "….Sandaime-sama…when I…took this hat from you…I…promised…with everything that I am…that I would protect this village with my life."

"But, Mina -" The Third cut himself off, once again taking in the full extent of Minato's injuries and suddenly realizing that nothing he could say would change anything at this point. He suddenly wished, not for the first time, that he had taken the time to learn more than just basic medical techniques over the course of his long life, though he knew that not even his old student could have saved his successor now. Bowing his head slightly, the sadness in his eyes covered by the shadows of his battle helmet, he nodded, and made to speak, but before he could Minato instigated his last conversation on this earth.

"Saru -" He swallowed harshly, choking back more blood with a harsh swallow, "Kushina..." he trailed off helplessly, not even having the energy to turn his head in his wife's direction again.

Sarutobi looked to the slender female Anbu that was checking on the crimson-haired woman and grimaced when the kunoichi shook her head silently. He looked back to the dying blond and his eyes saddened further at the despair already present on Minato's face.

"…You already know the answer to that, Minato." He said quietly, unwilling to actually put voice to the sheer, inescapable fact of the woman's death.

The Fourth blinked furiously a few times, his lips tightening harshly and then relaxing a tad. It wouldn't be long until he'd be with his beloved red-head again. He nodded slowly in an effort not to jostle his injuries too much and somehow managed to move his hand enough to grip at the elder man's wrist harshly. He locked suddenly intense blue eyes with the saddened gaze of his predecessor and made one last request of him. "…Take…care of…her…old man."

"Her?" Sarutobi was silent for a split second, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Who?"

"My…daughter." Minato stated, tears hovering somewhere beyond the surface of his eyes. He titled his head towards the ceremonial pedestal to his left.

The Third quickly removed Minato's hand from his wrist and rose to his feet, moving swiftly to remove the squalling child from the elevated stand. Still surprised, he resisted the urge to check for himself before returning to his successor's side. "I thought you two were going to have a boy?" he couldn't help but ask, even though the opposite was obviously true. This tiny girl couldn't be anyone but Minato's child with that vivid, spiky golden-blonde hair and ridiculously blue eyes.

Minato laughed harshly and silently, copper blood flooding his throat again for a moment. He choked it back as quickly as he could, and suddenly realized that he couldn't feel any of his extremities anymore. He couldn't have moved his hand to touch his daughter one last time even if he wanted to. He struggled to finish choking back the liquid before he replied, deciding to ignore the lack of sensation for now. "We…did too. I suppose it…might be…better this way…in the end." Every other Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had been female; he supposed that tradition was now aptly carried on.

His eyes glued to the now quiet, but still wide-eyed, child, he smiled slightly – a painful quirk of the lips - as the girl's solemn gaze turned to regard him. "I love you…my daughter…my legacy. No…matter what…you choose to…do…in the uncertain future… You are…the true hero tonight, Namikaze-Uzumaki…Noriko." His eyes flicked up meet Sarutobi's for a brief moment before turning back to his child. "Make sure…they know that too…old man."

"Yes," Sarutobi swallowed back his own pain at the sight of quickly fading man to answer, "I will."

Minato made no indication that he had heard him though, as he finally closed his eyes for the last time. He whispered it brokenly on his last breath, his darkening mind filled with images of his wife's long red hair and wide smile, the bright blue of his daughter's eyes, her tiny, precious hands. His browed furrowed ever so slightly before smoothing. He still couldn't believe she had his hair…

"I…love…you..."

After a moment or so of unbearable silence the soon to be reinstated Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, moved forward to quickly check the now still man's pulse. He closed his eyes in despair as, as anticipated, he felt nothing beneath his fingers.

The Yondaime Hokage was dead.

Holding the girl gently to his chest, he bowed his head in respect for a long moment, the Anbu behind him mirroring the action. He then stood, and his eyes softened as he watched the baby hesitantly, and then loudly, begin to cry for a mother and father that would never answer her tears again – were never even able to answer them in the first place. Gently running a few fingers through the soft tuft of blond hair on her head he rocked her gently in a motion he'd, if not perfected, at least become proficient at over the course of raising three children of his own. It took quite a while for the infant to calm down, but once she was reduced to mere sniffles, but was barely awake, he spoke.

"You will have many hardships laying in front of you, my dear. I will do all I can to help you on your journey, Noriko-chan." He then turned to the three Anbu that had stoically watched on. "Everything you heard here is now an S-class secret. Speak of this to no one." He gave them a hard look. "Now, seal their bodies and the pedestal – leave no traces. It's time to go back."

* * *

**Author's Note**

* * *

So, here it is: the rewrite. I'm honestly glad that I decided to do it, especially now that I'm done with this first part of it. And, you should also know that since I'm posting this (this prologue in particular has been done since late December of 2012) I have also completed rewrites of all of the chapters up to where I left off in Noriko: The Beginning – in other words, this is written and completed, aside from last minute check overs, edits, and revisions, well into the obligatory Chunin Exam Arc.

I will post a new chapter steadily - once every two or three weeks, most likely - until I run out of pre-written chapters. And that might take a while, since after the rewrite I have many more chapters than I originally did to actually post.

For those of you that are coming back to read this after reading my first try of this story, some things will remain the same, but others will be very different. I hope you enjoy it anyway. For those of you that haven't read it yet, but want to, that version will be kept up indefinitely. Comparisons between the two versions (positive or negative) might even be viable fodder for reviews…Just saying. Any reviews are welcome and appreciated though, regardless of their content.

~ Aljan Moonfire


	2. Prologue (II) - The Consequences

**Aljan Moonfire does not Naruto or any other recognizable references.**

* * *

_**Prologue (II) – The Consequences**_

* * *

His first, quiet steps into the room were greeted with a slow subsiding of the chatter that had previously filled it. He slowly made his way to the middle of the room and turned to face the council members that had already gathered there.

The room itself was large and circular in shape, and designed specifically for meetings like the one about to take place. The seats of the council members were arranged in a tiered semicircle around the room. The main double doors of the room then divided that same semicircle into two sections. Across from the semi-circle of seats was a long, oppositely curved desk, and behind that a comfortable chair, perfectly positioned to have a clear view of every other seat in the room. This final seat was also directly across from the doors.

To the left of the doors sat the civilian council, taking up the middle and far back rows. The front row before them lay empty, the seats of the Go-Ikenban unfilled for now as Minato's advisors – his wife, Uzumaki Kushina, and his genin teammates, Hanajima Saki and Shoki Ryuga – had all died over the course of the Kyuubi attack.

To right of the doors, the full Shinobi and Clan councils were seated, the Clan heads seated towards the front and slowly merging with the rest of the Shinobi Council in the back. As two of the Clan Heads (Uchiha Fugaku and Nara Shikaku) also held positions on the Shinobi Council it had been decided that it was most expedient that the two councils sit together years ago.

He slowly took them all in as they grew silent under his solemn, powerful stare. He, much like many of the other shinobi in the room, had not had time to change since the fighting ended, and stood steadfastly in his battle armor, only the helmet missing. He blinked slowly, and finally began to speak, "The Fourth Hokage," he said gravely, "is dead."

The shinobi in room, already aware of this, bowed their heads sadly in acknowledgement of this fact. Some of the civilians, also aware, followed suit. Those who weren't aware were either stunned into complete, unmoving silence, or, in one case, burst into quiet tears.

"He sacrificed himself," he continued, "in order to singlehandedly defeat the monster that appeared on our very doorstep early yesterday evening – the Kyuubi no Yoko." He was quiet for a moment more.

"How is that possible?" the question inevitably came. Nara Shikaku, for once looking to be completely awake and on point, continued to voice his thoughts. "The Bijuu are only incredibly dense masses of chakra, it's supposed to be impossible to kill one of them; let alone the most powerful of them, the Kyuubi no Yoko."

The shinobi around him nodded or, failing that, agreed inwardly. Even the civilian council, on hearing this, turned to Sarutobi for a clearer explanation.

"I never said that he killed the Kyuubi," the Sandaime stated in response.

One of the civilian representatives lurched to their feet at that, panic overtaking his thoughts, "Are you saying that the Kyuubi is still out there?! That it could attack us again at any time?!"

Before the rest of the council could jump to any further conclusions, Sarutobi raised his voice once more to speak further, "I did not say that either!" he declared harshly. He turned his eyes to the still standing man, "Settle down and allow me to finish." He paused then to make sure no one was going to say anything else before continuing to explain, "Minato-kun gave his life to defeat the Kyuubi by sealing it away, where it can no longer harm any of this village."

This time it was the Uchiha clan head, Fugaku, who was the one to make the connection. He voiced the thought slowly, and almost reluctantly, "But, the Bijuu cannot be sealed into anything but…" he trailed off then, but as he spoke some of the other ninja there came to the same realization. Anything, but a human.

"Yes," Sarutobi nodded. "There is now a new Kyuubi Jinchuuriki."

Seeing the confusion on the faces of those unfamiliar with the Sealing Arts, he elaborated further on just what a Jinchuuriki – a human sacrifice – was. A human, with a demon sealed within them.

By this point the civilian council was divided into two states of mind – those stunned into silence by the explanation, and those who were actively resisting the urge to protest verbally the unbelievable bombshells their former Hokage was so rapidly dropping on them. While almost equally stunned by this final revelation in particular, the shinobi members of the council had no difficulty believing it, knowing well the sealing genius of their now deceased leader.

"But we must put that aside for now," The Sandaime interrupted their thoughts, bringing their attention back to him. "There are other matters that must be immediately discussed. At the moment, we have no leader – no Hokage to lead us through the reconstruction and whatever may follow it. This is the main reason why I asked you all to gather here at the same time. We must decide on a new one as soon as possible…"

.-.

As he entered his former – now new, he supposed – office, the now reinstated Third Hokage sighed tiredly, before turning his head slightly to address someone who didn't appear to be there at all to the naked eye. "Kurohyou."

A cloaked Anbu with wearing a panther mask appeared seamlessly in a kneeling position at his side, head bowed. "Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi blinked tiredly and said, "Bring me the child."

"Hai." The Anbu vanished as soundlessly as he had appeared.

After Kurohyou left, the Third slowly rounded the desk, taking in once more the small changes his successor had made to the room. The desk was in a slightly different position. A new book shelf had taken up residence on the far wall and looked to be nearly jam-packed with books and scrolls on sealing and jutsu creation. On stopping beside the comfortable looking chair behind the old desk, he looked up to meet the eyes of his student's student in a small portrait that now hung next to his own on the wall beside the door.

Sarutobi rested a gentle hand on the familiar wood and finally let out a long sigh before murmuring softly, "Minato-kun, I…"

He cut himself off then, eyes snapping to the side where, not a moment later, Kurohyou reappeared with another Anbu in tow – this one slightly shorter, wearing an owl mask, and gently cradling what looked to be a bundle of white cloth in their arms. Sarutobi raised brow in inquiry.

Kurohyou gave a stiff bow and said, just as tautly, "She insisted."

The Third turned his gaze to the other Anbu. The owl-masked figured just gave the impression of raising a brow right back and turning a pointed look on the rigid figure beside her. Sarutobi suddenly and clearly came to the realization that Kurohyou likely wouldn't have a clue of what to do with an infant even if he'd actually had one himself. He got a clear feeling of rolled eyes too, though the female Anbu still didn't say anything.

The Hokage sighed. "I see." Still, he dismissed the sudden insight almost immediately and instead turned his attention to the small white bundle. He held his hands out to it and said, "If you would, Fukurou."

Fukurou quickly approached her superior and gently shifted the fragile bundle into the man's arms before silently backing away. Peering down into the folds of white cloth, Sarutobi quickly discovered the reason why the normally more talkative Anbu had been so abnormally silent. Noriko's small, peaceful face, poking slightly out of the soft blanket, clearly showed that the child was fast asleep.

Sarutobi gently shifted the girl enough to free one of his arms briefly and made a silent gesture of dismissal to the two Anbu. They vanished from sight as he turned back to the desk and rounded it once more, this time to actually take a seat in the chair behind it.

Staring down at the soft blond curls of Noriko's sparse hair, the Third sighed once more. Things had not gone as smoothly as he had hoped they would earlier. Even after he had managed to get the council members off of the subject of her in order to reinstate him, they had still managed to come back around to the subject a couple more times before he dismissed them for the night.

It was clear, at the very least, that the majority was very unhappy about the Fourth's decision to re-imprison the Kyuubi – not that most of them actually knew that it was, indeed, a _re_-imprisonment. As soon as the words had come out of his mouth (despite the confidence with which he had said them) he had begun to second guess the decision to tell the council about her. Previously, only the Go-Ikenban, the Daimyo, and the Hokage himself had known of the existence of Konoha's Jinchuuriki.

Now, the main councils all knew of it and he was already beginning to regret telling them, despite one of his first orders being on the secrecy needed. Noriko's Jinchuuriki status was now an S-ranked secret, and he only hoped that it was enough to protect her.

His thoughts were then interrupted by a soft knock on the door. At his inquiring response, his secretary (who doubled as extra security, as she was, in fact, an Anbu herself) poked her head in the door. "There is someone here who wishes to meet with you, Hokage-sama."

He raised an eyebrow, "Who?"

"Ah…" the woman said, "…Shimura Danzo-sama, sir." She had been the Yondaime's secretary too, and knew very well that Danzo's visits were never particularly welcome.

Sarutobi gave an inward groan but said, "…send him in then."

A moment later the ex-Anbu commander entered with an exaggerated limp, leaning on the cane Sarutobi was perfectly aware was mostly unneeded and held a concealed blade. In a glance, the Third registered at least twenty other places for potential hidden weapons.

Sarutobi was perfectly aware of how dangerous Danzo was, more so than many others might believe. He had practically grown up with the other man after all, and they had been rivals in almost everything since they were very young. And you didn't get to be as old as they were in this profession without being either very skilled or very lucky – or both.

He knew Danzo was very dangerous. But unlike many (his most perverted student especially) he was also aware of how _useful_ the other man was. Danzo was also aware of his own uses, and utilized them in turn to get what he wanted or needed. It was an almost game that had been going on between them for decades, and it seemed it was about to resume, and resume dramatically.

When Danzo's eyes immediately homed in on the blonde child in his arms, Sarutobi began to regret having her sent for, slightly.

Danzo narrowed his eyes. "That's the Jinchuuriki then." Despite the fact that it should have been a question, it didn't sound at all like one.

Sarutobi sighed inwardly, unwilling to show any weakness to his old rival. Outwardly, he merely held the girl closer to himself and gave a slight nod, saying, "Her name is Noriko," at the same time. He held Danzo's single eye strongly as he did this, and saw the derision that tinged it slightly. The Hokage knew it was for what Danzo considered 'unnecessary sentiment'. Anyone else would have seen nothing in the other old man's nearly emotionless gaze.

Danzo ignored the Third's response and shifted his regard back to the infant. "What do you intend to do?" he asked. Though the question was vague enough that it could have referred to anything (and Sarutobi contemplated explaining his thoughts on what to do about their currently decimated forest around the front gate, just to be contrary), Sarutobi knew he was referring to his successor's child – not that the man before him knew of that connection. Yet, anyway.

The Hokage glanced down at the small girl and said, "I want her to grow as normally as is possible," he began. Ignoring the growing contempt in Danzo's gaze at his words, he continued, "I will task my daughter with her care through her infancy, and then have her transferred to the orphanage. When she is old enough to enter the academy, she will be given her own apartment. After that, it is up to her." He finished.

Danzo snorted and ground his cane into the floor in irritation, "That child could become one of the most powerful ninja this village has ever seen, and you want to completely neglect giving her any early training?" he retorted incredulously.

Sarutobi narrowed his eyes in return, "I will never neglect this child, but I refuse to turn her into an emotionless child solider - as I am sure _you_ would urge me to."

"Trained early, that girl could become immensely powerful, especially with the weapon she contains," Danzo almost snarled back. "Of course I would encourage her early advancement; that _you_ would waste such potential is a ridiculous oversight on your part, Sarutobi! "

"Enough!" the Third Hokage growled, slamming his free hand onto the desk with a resounding crack as he rose to his feet, "I will hear no more of this – I have already made my decision!"

Danzo reigned himself in, and shook his head. "You will regret this, Sarutobi, I assure you. She needs to be trained early! And if you would hand her training over to me, she would be even stronger than she would be otherwise."

The Third, forcibly calming himself said in return, "I disagree," with an icy immovability. "And regardless, I will never give you free reign over her training."

"You will regret this." Danzo repeated, his teeth grinding almost audibly.

.

"I regret many things Danzo," he said resignedly, his eyes glancing behind his old adversary to run over the portrait of his recently deceased successor in particular, "and I'm sure I'll come to regret many more; but I do not think I will ever regret not handing her over to you." His gaze returned to meet Danzo's as he concluded his statement.

Danzo returned the stare for a moment before, reading Sarutobi's determination in it, finally subsiding. The Third, seeing the unvoiced withdrawal in his old rival's gaze, asked, "Was there anything else, Danzo?"

Danzo shook his head, "Nothing that cannot be covered during the meeting tomorrow."

"You are dismissed, then." Sarutobi commanded.

Danzo gave a shallow bow that verged dangerously on mockery and swiftly removed himself from the room.

The Hokage did not relax for a few more moments, but when he did, his gaze immediately came down to rest on the somehow still sleeping face of his newest charge. His eyes softened further as he began to speak. "Somehow, even decades later, we still find it impossible to have a civil conversation face to face," he whispered to the tiny girl. "I can only hope that someday you encounter a similar rival to push you forward."

Thoughts remaining on the short conversation that had just ended, Sarutobi grimaced. In some ways, Danzo did have a point. Even now, as small and helpless as she was, he could see the potential in her to be great. And if he trained her early, she could reach her peak that much sooner… But he refused to ruin the innocence of his successor's child any sooner than was strictly necessary.

He suppressed his worries with an iron will; right now he didn't have time to worry about this – there was so much more to be taken care of.

"Fukurou." The owl masked Anbu appeared again and he rose to hand the girl off to her again. "Take her to my daughter – tell her to care for her until I come to explain. Your whole squad will guard her on rotation with Kurohyou's," he commanded, thinking slightly of man that had just left his office, but also of other threats. At his name, the panther masked Anbu appeared as well.

"Hai." Fukurou and Kurohyou said quietly at the same time. They vanished then, one after the other, in successive swirls of leaves. Certain that the child will be well looked after now, he returned to his desk and the small mountain of paperwork that seemed to have appeared on it while his back was turned.

He groaned audibly this time, but sat down and quickly began to read over the first report.

.-.

"Excuse me." the softly uttered statement – one that should have been a question, but wasn't – was terrifying in its coldness.

Sarutobi was quite certain that he had never been angrier in his life. On further reflection, he withdrew the statement, remembering a couple of time where he had, in fact been more livid. Still, the point remained.

He was furious – and with good reason.

"Repeat what you just said – clearly." The Third ordered, rising slowly to his feet.

Quailing beneath the coldly furious glare of his superior, the masked Anbu slowly stood. Gulping as quietly as he could, the young, darkly cloaked man could only think on how much he hated playing the messenger – especially when the message was universally bad news.

"Directly after leaving the meeting the night before last, civilian council member Jiroumu returned to his home to share the news of your reinstatement and the sacrifice of Uzumaki Noriko with his family. His family then proceeded to spread the news throughout their acquaintances. The rumors have continued to spread since. At this point, there is almost no way, that we can see, to stem the tide. We await your orders." The Anbu slowly said, coming very close to flinching several times as the old Hokage's killing intent continued to rise though out his report.

The intelligence division had done their best to put a stop to the rumors, arresting anyone who seemed to have the remotest knowledge of Noriko's…situation – but it had quickly become obvious that there was almost no way to make the people disbelieve what they had already heard. It retrospect, it became obvious the outright arresting of the perpetrators had not done anything to help situation.

Sarutobi scowled.

The Third stood from his position behind his desk and quickly moved toward the Council Room, the rather shell-shocked Anbu trailing behind. "What have they done with the initial instigator?"

Snapping once more to attention the man adjusted his sheep mask as unobtrusively as he could and replied, "He was taken to Ibiki."

"And?"

"There seems to have been no underlying motive besides malice towards the Container and her…resident."

Sarutobi's scowl deepened and he gave a sharp nod. "Tell Ibiki I will be down soon to confirm. First though, I have to deal with the rest of the council." Shoving the doors of the Council Room open, the God of Shinobi left his subordinate to follow his orders.

.-.

**Four Months Later…**

Carefully lowering himself into the chair behind the Hokage's desk, Sarutobi sighed harshly, allowing the heavy sound to resound audibly throughout the room. Leaning forward, he allowed himself a brief moment of weakness as he pinched the bridge of his nose with careful fingers in a futile attempt to lessen his pounding headache.

Eventually The Third opened his eyes and raised his gaze to meet the serious eyes of the Fourth Hokage for a moment, remembering the meeting he had just escaped from. He sighed again and then spoke aloud to the silent photo, "You would be so disappointed in this village, Minato-kun. I know I am. I want to protect her as much as I can – but I suppose this is all I can do. My hands have been tied. I…am so sorry."

Blinking harshly, he shook his head, cursing not only the villagers, but also himself. He had made so many mistakes in dealing with this, and he could only wonder at the kinds of consequences that would follow.

It had taken months to deal with even the most minor of the consequences of the attack – and none of those consequences could really be considered minor. The sheer destruction that the Kyuubi Attack had caused was far from limited to just the physical, even if the losses in that area remained significant. The damage to their infrastructure and trade, the losses suffered by the shinobi forces, the absolute pummeling the reputation of the village had taken in the eyes of the world, especially with the loss of the Fourth Hokage… It all had to be dealt with, and Noriko's problematic circumstances were just the cherry atop the whole awful sundae.

Of course, as Noriko's situation was the focus of the meeting he had just returned from, it was where the majority of his attention rested at the moment. Things had only gotten worse on that front as the months passed. When he had had the councilman executed publicly for violating the S-class secret, he had explained the situation and the law to the rest of the village.

Over fifty more people had had to be executed for violating the law since, and it seemed that things were just going downhill from there. Despite become more quiet about it, the civilians were almost universally against Noriko for slew of reasons – fear of her, of the beast she carried, of it being released; hate directed at the Kyuubi and taken out on her; some even (despite his careful explanations) still believed her to be the actual human form of the nine-tailed fox, and nothing he could say could change their minds. The willful ignorance was about to drive him clear around the bend.

However, he knew that the rest of the civilian council was more subtle with their dealings, if only through necessity. Because of the guards he had around the child twenty-four/seven, he had made it almost impossible for frontal actions to succeed. He would have to keep an eye out for them, but as he honestly had no idea what they might decide to do, it would be very difficult.

He almost wanted to scream at them that they were doing this to their beloved hero's child – Minato had been practically deified by the majority of the village in the months since the attack – but he knew that would just make things even worse. After all, Minato had had many enemies, both outside and inside the village that would take any chance they could to get back at him, even if he was now dead. It might even end up turning some of his much needed shinobi support against both him and the child - and that must be avoided at all costs.

On top of all this, of course, since he couldn't reveal her heritage to the council without grave consequences, Noriko was considered a technical civilian – and thus under the care of those that hated her most. He would soon have to send her to a public orphanage instead of keeping her with him for a bit longer, as he had first intended.

And, all of his students were out of the village at this point so he couldn't even entrust her upbringing to one of them instead.

"I am too old for this," he murmured, sighing once more. He then turned his attention back to his desk, and, picking up a pen, began to get to work. Even now, there was still so much to do…

* * *

**Author's Note**

And, the next part. Enjoy.


	3. Chapter I - The Cage

**Aljan Moonfire does not own Naruto, or any other recognizable references.**

* * *

_**Chapter I – The Cage**_

* * *

Uzumaki Noriko was a smart child.

She had to be.

And she knew that the world was against her, in more ways than one. She knew that she was different; different from any other child in the village. She wasn't entirely sure _why_, but she knew that she was.

Other children had parents. Other children were allowed to play with each other. Other children didn't need to worry about where their next meal was coming from, weren't forced to stay alone and out of the way constantly. She had learned over the course of her short life that she was the least important person in the orphanage – in the entire village.

In every way that mattered, she was on her own.

The only exception to this rule visited her every ten days.

He was old, and wore weird red and white robes, as well as an odd hat. He smoked a pipe, and always seemed very tired and sad to her, even when he smiled. But, most importantly (to her), he was kind.

Most people flinched away from her, refused to touch her, refused to speak with her – the only exceptions being an occasional blow, or to scream at her to get away. It was from them that she leaned that physical contact meant pain, that words meant anger; but that such things were only the case for her.

The old man was different though. When he spoke to her, he didn't yell, and it was from him that she learned to speak. When he touched her, he was gentle, and it was from him that she learned that to be touched wasn't always a bad thing. She loved the old man, loved him with the certain desperation that only one who has never _been_ loved can.

But still, the old man was one person – one person that treated her like everyone else, in a cold world that couldn't care less that she existed. A world where everyone she met looked at her with a cold glare that went right through her as if she didn't even exist.

She hated it. Sometimes, she hated _them_.

But still, she smiled and laughed and hoped that maybe if she acted like the carefree children she watched with envy, that they would, for once actually _see_ her_._

But Noriko was smart and she was almost six years old - and she knew that she was different.

.-.

"Stay here." The middle-aged woman commanded, almost snarling, as she practically flung the small blonde child loose into the waiting room.

Noriko immediately scrambled to her feet, knowing better than to leave herself vulnerable in any way in this place. She watched with wary eyes as the woman quickly moved to the door opposite the one they had come in through and opened it. The girl knew that the head matron's office was on the other side of that door, and her being here couldn't mean anything good. For her. She was sure that the woman that had just dragged her here would likely be overjoyed if something bad were to happen to her.

Still keeping her attention on the woman, she surveyed the room for any escape routes, and sighed when she only saw a couple small windows high up on the walls and the two doors, both of which, she could now tell, had people on the other side. The room they had just left still contained the perpetual crowd of children that the orphanage contained, and she could immediately hear the voices of the people in the office when the woman opened the door.

"…no longer has to…"

"…disa…I hope you kn…"

"Hokage-sama, I…her…the other childr…"

She relaxed slightly as the woman left her alone, departing through the door she had just opened, but leaving the door slightly cracked behind her. She could still hear the people in the office, and her ears perked up a bit more to listen carefully when she recognized one of the voices.

She moved closer, sure to keeping her body out of the direct line of sight the cracked door allowed.

"…is no chance of her being adopted!" she recognized the slightly screechy tones of the head matron, and could clearly imagine the head of the assistant that had brought her here nodding in agreement. "Everyone knows what she is, Hokage-sama!"

"What, she is?" she heard a deep male voice ask leadingly, restrained temper in his tone. She smiled as she recognized the voice. The old man was here, as she'd thought.

"Who." The matron quickly corrected herself. "Who she is… Hokage-sama, the child can care for herself well enough; and she is…"

"Enough." The deep male voice paused slightly after interrupting the matron's strident tones. "As much as I hate to agree with you, I can see that keeping her here any longer would only hurt her even more than her being on her own would." She quickly moved backwards to where the assistant had dropped her a minute ago when she heard the sound of someone – likely the old man – rising to their feet and moving closer to the door. She lost the rest of what he said as she did so, though she could still hear the murmur of his voice, but quickly looked up from her position on the floor when the office door opened fully.

"Noriko-chan," The old man said, smiling at her as she met his eyes.

"Old man," She said in reply, and caught the matron emerging from the office behind him as she spoke. "What's going on?" she asked. She thought she knew, from what she had overheard, but she could be wrong.

"Noriko…" She watched as he hesitated, and then crouched in order to be closer to her eye level. "Noriko-chan," he repeated, "How would you feel about not living here any longer?"

"Where would I live instead?" she asked.

"An apartment of your own. You'd have to take good care of it, but it would be yours as long as you did."

Noriko thought about that for a moment. A place of her own, without mean adults or bullying children; where she could do as she liked without worrying about being yelled at, or swiped at with whatever was on hand. A place that would be hers and nobody else's…

Quietly, she said, "I'd like that a lot."

"Alright, then I'll get you one."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really." He confirmed.

She smiled up at him, the first she'd given in a long time.

"Okay."

.-.

"You had better get me that rent by tomorrow or - !"

Noriko shut the door in the landlord's face and quickly slammed close both the dead bolt and the chain - though she had to stretch up uncomfortably to reach them – unwilling to continue listening.

She then locked it more traditionally with a sharp _click_, and then turned around to face the rest of the room after confirming that it was, indeed, secured. As her gaze ran over the now familiar main room of her apartment, she sighed. She could still hear the man shouting through the closed door, though, thankfully, she could no longer discern the words. She knew that he'd go away soon enough.

The main room she was currently in contained both the small dining area and kitchenette, the only inhabitants besides herself being the small, battered and mismatched set of table and chairs, and the small plant sitting on the windowsill. The kitchenette took up the majority of the room and was, for the most part, clean, if not particularly neat. Across from her the room connected to a short hall that then attached it to both the bathroom and her bedroom, the latter of which was about the size of the room she currently stood in.

Resisting the urge to sigh once more, she set the house keys on the table and made her way across the few steps it took to pass through the hall and into the bedroom. As she entered the room she flicked the light switch, but was unsurprised, though annoyed, when nothing happened. '_Must have cut my electricity again,'_ she thought, and moved across the room to flop down on her small, creaky bed in the dark, the only soft light coming from the moon by way of her small balcony.

Not bothering to change into something more comfortable, she stared up at the ceiling, and just thought. It had been a month since the old man had gotten Noriko the apartment, and while she was grateful, she sometimes wondered if the small apartment was any better than the orphanage itself. While, yes, she no longer had to deal with cruel matrons, she now had to deal with a mean landlord instead. And, while she no longer had to live with them, that didn't make the older orphans less inclined to bully her either. It just meant that now she had somewhere to hide from them.

And, of course, living on her own made no difference to how the villagers treated her as well. Noriko was beginning to think that there was nothing she could do to change what they thought of her.

But, despite all that, today hadn't been a bad day.

It was October tenth today, and thus, her birthday. While, as she had come to expect, this meant the villagers treated her even worse than normal, the old man had made sure to visit with her today, even though she'd just seen him a couple of days earlier, and take her out to eat. They'd gone to one of the only places in the village that would not only allow her in, but also give her fair prices on their food: Ichiraku's Ramen Stand. While she liked ramen well enough, what she really loved about the place was the way she was treated. While she was there, she was just another customer; maybe even a favored one, if the way Ayame-nee-chan treated her was any indication, though she couldn't be sure.

She'd even gotten a present this year – the first she'd even gotten. At the thought of it, she quickly dug the gift out of her pocket and sat up in order to see it better in the soft moonlight. Noriko smiled, slightly sheepish, as she thought again of what had happened when Ayame-nee-chan had given it to her. Before today, she hadn't even known what a gift was. The old man had looked even unhappier than usual when he'd had to explain it to her, for some reason. He had tucked his pipe away, and smiled sadly as he'd told her that a gift was something that was given to another without any expectation of reciprocation; it was given with only the intention of making the other person happy.

Her smile widened again as she looked at the cute little froggie purse. Her first present. She bit her lip as tears began to well in her eyes. She was happy. She was so happy; she was happy, because, for what seemed to be the first time, someone else wanted her to be.

She smiled through the tears and lay back down, hugging the small purse to her chest as the first fireworks of the Kyuubi festival were set off to explode into the night sky.

She was happy.

.-.

A shadowed form watched as a small blonde girl was escorted to her apartment building by the Hokage himself. He continued to watch as the man returned to his tower, discreetly signaling to the Anbu keeping watch over the girl as he did so.

The figure continued to observe the building, its inhabitants, and it's other watchers, well into the night, even as the festivities around it continued, and only grew more exuberant as time passed. He waited patiently as the moon rose higher into the sky; as the fireworks displays ended, as the celebrations either moved themselves inside or ended for the night all together.

He waited, for just the right moment; for the pre-designed space in between shifts; for the Anbu watchers to leave their posts; for the target to be unguarded, undefended, for the first time since before it was even born. He waited.

And when the right moment came, the shadowed form _moved. _

Within seconds, he was gone from his perch, and had landed on the small, convenient balcony outside the target's bedroom. Then he was inside, beside the target's bed, and looking down at the target herself. A curtain of blond hair draped across the pillow, and small hands clutched something indistinguishable in a loose grip. The small whiskers across her cheeks were almost invisible in the dim lighting, but he could still make them out. The small girl couldn't be more than six at the most, and the shadow briefly wondered what such a small girl had done to offend his employers so.

Then he shrugged; it didn't make any difference to him. This was a mission: nothing more, and nothing less. Quickly snatching the target's hands up in a tight grip in one hand, the shadow pinned the girl to the bed and slapped a drugged cloth over the girl's mouth and nose with the other.

The shadow watched with narrowed eyes as the girl quickly woke at his harsh touch, dazed blue eyes snapping open in shock, only to haze over again and close once more as the drug did it's work. Once he was sure the blonde was completely unconscious, he quickly lashed her hands together, entirely uncaring of the small object that dropped out of them, and then did the same with her feet. Once he was done, he hurriedly wrapped the girl in a dark blanket in order to keep her bright hair and pale skin from giving him away.

Then he hauled the girl up on his shoulder and was gone, leaping from the balcony, and swiftly disappearing into the night.

Discarded and forgotten on the floor, a cheerfully smiling coin purse with a distinctly frog-like design continued to grin blankly at the ceiling.

.-.

"It is done?" the man asked as the other slipped in through an open window.

The person who had just entered the room through the deliberately left open portal nodded, and carefully set the bundle that had been slung over his shoulder on the ground before himself. He then opened it just enough that blonde hair and a whiskered cheek could be seen before standing again.

"The payment?" the man asked as he straightened. As he did so, his form was partially revealed by the low lighting. Roughly cropped dark hair spiked up from the top of his head, but his face was, for the most part, concealed by a plain mask that markedly resembled those of the Hunter-nin division. Piercing pale eyes glimmered fiercely from beneath it to meet those of the only other person in the room.

The other man was standing on the opposite side of the only piece of furniture in the room, a small table that only served to display small bag that seemed to be stuffed to the very gills with something. Said individual was the very epitome of ordinary, with mud brown hair, similarly colored eyes, and pale skin. His build was on the slighter side, but not skinny, and his facial features could only be described as plain.

The plain man nodded in response and gestured at the well stuffed bag. "Your reward, then." He said.

The masked man swiftly stepped closer to the bag, and opened it. He shuffled around the contents for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. He then removed a small scroll from a pocket and unrolled it on the table before swiftly sealing the bag within it.

"My business here is done then." The masked man murmured then, before stuffing the scroll back into its pocket. He nodded once more at the plain man, before disappearing out of the room again through the window.

The plain man was still for a long moment after the man he had hired left. His eyes then came to rest on the still form that said man had abandoned on the cold floor of the room. Then his face was split by a strange, menacing smirk. He slowly moved around the table to crouch beside the still wrapped shape. He stared at the revealed, whisker-marked cheek for a second, before suddenly, violently, ripping the covering away.

Now uncovered, the awkwardly sprawled form of Uzumaki Noriko was laid bare before his eyes.

.-. `

Noriko woke sluggishly, disoriented and uncomfortable.

She stiffened involuntarily as whispers resounded in ears that expected anything but. She wasn't alone. She didn't open her eyes, but tried to take stock of her surroundings without them. She didn't have much luck, only determining that she was sprawled on the ground somewhere that most certainly wasn't her bedroom (even her floor wasn't this uncomfortable), that both her wrists and her ankles were bound together, and that there were quite a few people in the room with her.

As she continued to try to listen, the whispers suddenly became much clearer, and she could make out some of the words.

"..ing, Hoka…"

"…we'v…planning this…"

"You know you…"

"…hurry…heat…further…"

"Is every…nd…will stuff like…hurt…"

"..can cert…try…"

"It's awake." A clear voice suddenly interrupted. It was deep, and kind of growly.

"Already?" another voice answered, startled. This one was lighter, though still clearly male. "I thought the drug was supposed to last a while longer?"

"It is a demon, though. I suppose we should have expected something like this." Yet another interjected. This voice was a soft alto, and clearly female.

'_Demon?_' Noriko wondered. Then a large, harsh hand locked around her bound wrists and dragged her half off the ground and her eyes snapped open in shock to meet a cruel, narrowed glare.

"Stop pretending to be out of it, demon." The man growled out. It was the first one who had spoken, but the room was too dimly lit for her to make out any features on his face. Terrified, the girl began to squirm, trying to get away from the frightening man. She only succeeded in getting the man to tighten his grip. "Gimme the knives," he rumbled, dangerously.

Noriko watched with wide, frightened eyes as the man took a gleaming knife from one of the others, and brought it close to her wrists. She tried to squirm away from it, but failed as he gave her a harsh jerk that nearly yanked her shoulders out of their sockets and forced her to cry out in shock. He quickly sliced through the bindings holding her hands together, and proceeded to pin her to the ground.

She struggled further as another person approached and grabbed one of her hands from his grip. "Can't have you trying to run away now," the woman murmured in her ear, before stretching her arm out and forcing her hand to uncurl from its terrified fist. Out of the corner of her eye, Noriko glimpsed the only warning she would get as the raised knife gleamed in the light.

She was screaming before the blade even hit her flesh, but she felt every moment of the pain as the knife pierced through the nerves and muscle that made up her small hand. She almost choked on her own tears as she sobbed and screamed at the pain. It only worsened as the same act was repeated on her other hand.

Slowly, the sharp pain of the injury dulled slightly as she seemed to get more used to it. As long as she didn't move her hands…it was almost bearable. She vaguely realized that she must have bitten her tongue or something, as she tasted blood in her mouth.

The growly man had raised himself back to her feet while she was…distracted, and now seemed to be staring, fascinated, at her hands. "It's trying to heal around the knives, look." The woman said. She was staring at the same thing the man was. Others crowded around as well, to stare, to gawk at her.

"It seems it will take a lot in hurt it permanently," the growly man said.

"All the better," another replied. "That just means we can take our time."

As others jostled even closer, her eyes widened once more as she got a glimpse of the various different weapons they were holding, before closing in despair. Another blade bit into the skin of her arm, and she bit her lip, determined not to scream again. It was the only thing she could do now.

What seemed to be hours, but was probably less, passed as they continued to bite into her with harsh weapons and maddened voices. She could do nothing but listen as they told her that she was the Kyuubi no Kitsune reborn, of everything she had supposedly done, but couldn't remember. Eventually, she didn't even have enough energy or will to even cry as they accused her and passed punishment on her.

Finally, they began to leave off the girl as they discovered that wounds without a weapon stuck in them healed much too quickly for their tastes. Soon enough, though, they found a partial solution to even that. By heating up the blades enough that they glowed with a red hot light, they could, if not leave her with gaping wounds, at least give her cauterizing scars that made her scream even more than the comparatively mundane tortures they had already inflicted upon her.

"As enjoyable as all this is, we don't have much time left." One of them eventually, said, though she was now too far gone to try and identify the voice.

Roughly tearing a kunai from her mangled arm, he watched briefly as the skin slowly healed without a scar left behind. He only got a choked off whimper in response to the renewed pain. The girl watched dully as the kunai was thrust once more into the fire. Soon enough, it began to glow, and was removed from the flames. Gripping carefully, so he wouldn't burn himself, the man raised the kunai above his head. "Now, you will die, Kyuubi!" he shouted. The people still around her cheered as the kunai began its descent. As it rapidly closed in to stab into the girl's unresponsive eye –

Noriko woke up.

.-.

And was very surprised to find herself alive; and not only that, but in a sewer.

She could have sworn she was about to die. Had it been a dream? Was this a dream? Both seemed too real. She floated, confused and stunned, in the water for a very long moment before bracing herself and trying to sit up. When she did, she was shocked to find that she was not in any kind of pain at all.

As she sat up the water reached her chest and she looked around in confusion and noticed another strange thing. Oddly enough, the water didn't feel cold at all. She couldn't smell anything either. Looking around the girl was surprised at how rundown the walls that curved into the ceiling seemed, even if they still looked to be standing strong. Glancing up, she was once more taken aback by the glowing pipes that snaked all over the ceiling. Blue and purple and red interwove in a dense mesh of bright colors that almost seemed to hurt her eyes in contrast to the almost washed out surroundings.

Following the glowing pipes with her gaze, her eyes eventually fell on the glowing intersection only a few yards away. She quickly rose - unbearably curious and trying not to remember what she seemed to have just narrowly escaped from – and trotted towards it, her feet not making a sound in the strangely still water. Pausing in the center of the bright florescent light (that somehow only managed to make things seem more washed out, not less) Noriko then proceeded chose a path at random before slogging again back into the darkness.

She had no way of knowing that in this place, every way leads to the Cage.

.-.

Noriko, beyond bored by now, began humming a nursery rhyme one of her old Anbu guards had taught her under her breath as she continued to make her way through the seemingly endless sewer. The never ending and never changing hallways that stretched endlessly both in front of and behind her were beginning to get very old.

Soon enough though, she suddenly noticed a light in the distance. Wanting to escape her gloomy surroundings as quickly as possible, she made her way towards the strange reddish light as fast as she could. When she reached it, she was startled when she only stumbled into yet another brightly lit intersection.

Confused, she glanced around and soon noticed a hallway that, instead of disappearing into darkness, was instead obscured by a red light she couldn't see beyond. Concluding that this light must have been what she had caught a glimpse of before, she slowly moved towards it. Warily walking forward, she squinted her eyes awkwardly until they were almost shut and tried to shield them from the light with one of her hands. Eventually the light began to dim, and she made to open them again as the glare died down almost completely.

"**I was not expecting this. Not yet anyway.**"

Startled by the unexpected voice, the girl snapped her eyes open completely and looked around, frantically attempting to find the source of it. While low and unmistakably coursing with power, the voice was somehow undeniably female as well; smooth and cultured, with an undefinable accent.

Still confused, and slightly frightened, Noriko took a step back as she finally got a good look at her surroundings. In front of her stood an immense gate; solid and _real_ in a way that the rest of her surroundings just couldn't quite manage to be. It was so huge that she couldn't even determine the where it met the ceiling, it stretched so far up. It was held closed by only a slim piece of paper that didn't seem as if it could keep anything locked, let alone the Gate. It had only the simple kanji for the word 'seal' scribbled clearly upon it.

"**Well? What are you just standing there for, girl? Come closer.**"

The command in the voice was unmistakable. Instinctively obeying for some reason, the child slowly moved closer to gate, and then proceeded to be scared out of her wits by a sudden, terrifyingly loud, roar that sent her tumbling, ass over teakettle, to land in the space she had just moved from with a splash.

Scrambling to sit bolt upright in the, now still, chest deep water, the little girl had an almost comic expression of pure terror on her face. As the voice burst into low, chuckling laughter, she relaxed a bit, coming to the conclusion that it must have been some weird sort of joke. Noriko then froze in terror all over again at the sight that now greeted her from the slowly lightening shadows beyond the gigantic Gate.

Slowly stepping forward, an immense creature with unmistakable nine tails swishing and curling behind it met her gaze as the chuckles intensified once again. They were coming from the nine tailed being herself. "**Heh, ha! You should have seen the look on your face! I have not had a laugh that like that since…well, I actually cannot remember the last time I laughed like that.**" The nine-tails slowly calmed.

Regaining some of her composure the girl, still slightly wide eyed stared in shock at what could only be the Kyuubi no Kitsune. "What," She muttered, and then louder, "What the hell is going on! I –"

"**Relax, kit-ling. I have been here your entire life. This is inside of your mind, and you are the vessel of the Ruler of all Kitsune. The Nine-Tailed Bijuu. You are, and always have been, the Jinchuuriki – jailor and host - of the Kyuubi no Youko. I am sure some things make a hell of a lot more sense now, don't they.**"

Looking back on her life so far, especially the night she had just had – she shuddered involuntarily at the thought - she couldn't help but agree. "Yeah," she said softly, sadly. Bitterly. "But, why were you sealed in me? I thought the Yondaime had killed you?" She practically threw the questions at the massive creature. The Sandaime had told her the story himself.

"**There were a few reasons behind it from what I can understand. The first is that it is impossible to kill a Bijuu. Even if you do manage to disperse our forms we simply reappear somewhere else in the world; and I am the most powerful of them all. Your father knew that, so he sealed me inside of you at the cost of his own life instead.**"

"Wait a minute! My father?! Are you saying that the Yondaime was my father? Do you know who my mother was as well?"

Looking down at the desperate face of the child in front of her the Kyuubi's eyes softened almost imperceptibly and she replied, "**Your mother was named Uzumaki Kushina before she married your father in secret. She was one of my Jinchuuriki, before you were born. Your father was, as you have guessed, Namikaze Minato: the Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure. When I was extracted during your birth I was immediately put into a berserker state and forced to attack Konoha.**"

Sighing, the giant fox sat back on her haunches and continued, tails swishing restlessly behind her. "**Namikaze had no choice but to seal me into you. No other child could have handled the strain. There was also the fact that as long as he had a choice he could not ask someone else to sacrifice something he himself was not willing to give. I can respect that; which is the only reason I do not completely hate his guts for sealing me into a human. Again.**"

Nodding in a sort of dumbstruck understanding, Noriko collapsed back into the water. Shocked anew by the sensation she asked another question of the fox. "By the way, where are we anyway?"

Noriko got the distinct impression that if she could have, the Kyuubi would have arched a disbelieving eyebrow at her as she replied, "**I thought I already said this. This is your mind - your mindscape. It is a reflection of your consciousness. Its state is a direct reflection of your mental health. Considering what it looks like I am honestly still surprised you are not completely insane.**"

Eyes wide, the blonde child took another look at her surroundings, shocked for a different reason this time at its state. Realizing that it was probably the fault of her treatment at the villagers' hands she suddenly remembered what exactly had been going on with her body in the outside world. "Kyuubi…" she hesitated for a minute before just blurting it out, "am I dead?"

"**No. If you were you would not need to ask. However, you soon will be if we do not take some rather drastic measures.**" The fox said in a rather unreasonably unconcerned tone to Noriko's ears.

"What! Why didn't you tell me that in the first place! We're just sitting here chatting and I'm about to die!" the girl exclaimed rather hysterically. "Why –" the girl then cut herself off and said in a rather irritated manner, "Why aren't you panicking too!" As she met the amused gaze of the massive creature behind the bars she attempted to scowl but it came out as a rather cute pout instead.

"**Because, we have some time to think about what we are going to do first. I would not panic too much if I were you. It is really not worth the effort. Why do you not first try to change this place into something a little more comfortable while I change into a more convenient form for conversation?**"

Not being able to do anything but stare after the massive figure that was retreating into the gloom beyond the cage for a few seconds the girl then regained her composure and yelled after it. "And just how am I supposed to do that?!" and then huffed and muttered under her breath, "Stupid, lazy fox."

"**I heard that.**" Jumping at suddenly being face to teeth with the being imprisoned inside of her, Noriko gave a sheepish smile.

"Heh heh, heard what?"

Cocking her massive head, the fox snorted, making the girl fall back on her butt in the uncomfortable water. Narrowing her eyes slightly in amusement at the impudent kit, the vixen just made to turn back into the cage before replying. "**It is your mind, kit; do what you want with it.**"

.-.

As soon as the giant Bijuu left her line of sight the girl flopped back down into the water, sighing with relief. Now that she finally had time to relax the events of the day came rushing back to her in a rush. Waking up on her birthday, meeting with the old man, getting some celebratory ramen from Ichiraku's, and then ignoring the looks that most of the villagers gave her as Saru-jiji took her back to her apartment. Thinking, and falling asleep, and then… She avoided thoughts about what had happened next.

She really hoped that the fox had a good reason for being so blasé about all this, but she couldn't help but worry. Was she really about to die? She then thought about the revelations that had hit her one after the other, keeping her totally off balance. She couldn't help but wonder if that was the beast's intention with throwing all of that in her face. The Yondaime was her father? Who would have ever guessed? She could hardly believe it even now.

Then she frowned again. Who could have guessed? She'd bet almost anything that the old man knew. He was the Hokage after all; how could he not have known? She was going to have to have a long talk with him when she got out of this mess. If, she got out of this mess. She'd think about it later.

She then shook her head and turned to the original task set in front of her. "So, I just have to want it enough then?" She asked herself. She then frowned in concentration, closing her eyes and focusing on the most beautiful things she could think of. If this was her mind, then she wanted it to be pretty. Snow and sakura petals drifting gently through the air came to mind.

She then opened her eyes and gasped with delight. She now sat in an expansive field that she could just barely see the edges of. It spread out around her in a far-reaching plain. At the farthest edges of her vision she could just barely make out the towering dark forest surrounding it. Snow covered the ground in an even and untouched blanket without a single blemish, much like the weird water had before. When she moved to stand, she didn't even leave a trace where she'd been.

Looking through the gently falling snow, she glanced up when a flash of the palest pink caught her eye. Towering above her was an immense sakura tree in full bloom. The branches spread out and up from the massive trunk, unhindered by the gravity that should have kept in from reaching such a size. She knew that even a good dozen of her wrapping her arms around the trunk wouldn't encircle it, and from where she was standing she couldn't even make out the top of the tree. Collapsing into the soft snow as she looked around in awe, she was surprised to notice that the snow was just as temperature-less as the water had been before.

After an endless moment spent admiring her handiwork she snapped out of her half trance and moved to lean her back against the tree as she waited for the Kyuubi to return.

.-.

After she had shifted to a mostly human form the Kyuubi snorted and stretched. While this was one of her more favored forms it always took a while to work the kinks out after a prolonged amount of time in her natural form.

As the snow reached her and started falling she materialized a blood-red yukata that complimented the reddish-orange of her fur and wrapped it around herself. Curling her tails around her waist until they resembled a spiraling sash she used them to secure the garment around her waist and sighed.

Turning in the direction she instinctively knew was her vessel's main consciousness she gave a slight smile at the sight of the massive sakura tree in full bloom.

"**I suppose the next move is mine. I hope she will accept the offer though. Everything rides on her answer at this point.**" She then gave another sigh and began a leisurely stroll towards the now sleeping form of Uzumaki Noriko.

.-.

"**Noriko. Noriko, wake up.**" Waking up to the sound of someone calling her name Noriko rubbed her eyes clear and yawned. Glancing around for whoever had called her she was surprised at the sight of the stranger she found kneeling next to her.

She looked to be around twenty or so years old, and had long, reddish orange hair that pooled around her waist where she sat next to her. She wore a blood-red yukata that was secured around her waist with a silky, layered sash the same color as her hair. What really caught her attention though, were the red eyes with slit black pupils and the large fox ears that poked cutely through the hair on either side of her head.

Eyes wide with slight awe she immediately guessed who this was and sat up straight, forcing the woman to scoot backwards a bit. "Kyuubi?"

Tilting her head with a slight smirk and an almost imperceptible twinkle of mischief in her eye said kitsune replied, "**Yes, little one?**"

"Is that really you?"

"**Yes it is kit. Now then,**" the kitsune's face smoothed seriously, the twinkle disappearing from her eye and the smirk from her mouth, "**we need to discuss how we are going to survive the next few hours. I –**"

"The next few hours?! What –"

'_**I had almost forgotten I was dealing with someone who has just reached their sixth year.**_' Eyebrow twitching in slight irritation at the latest interruption, the Kyuubi interrupted the young girl in turn. "**Yes, the next few hours. Now, as I was saying; I have a proposition for you.**"

Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, suddenly remembering just who, or what, it was she was conversing with Noriko replied warily, "What kind of proposition?"

Smiling slightly in approval of the suspicious nature of the child, the woman replied in a serious manner, "**Will you become my Heir, Noriko?**"

* * *

_**Author's Note**_

* * *

And, the next, next part. Sorry it's so late. I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and the next one will definitely be out sooner; maybe even later-this-week sooner, if things go the way I hope they will.

Now, onto stuff about the chapter itself: Not much of this chapter is the same as it was in my previous story. There were a lot of changes, a few extra, minor elements introduced – that I do hope you caught - and (I hope) a much more believable scenario for Noriko to end up with her scars in. However, the last part of the chapter (the scenes between Noriko and the Kyuubi) were, for the most part, unchanged. I do hope I made the right decision there. I'm looking forward to your feedback on that front the most, I think.

R&R

~ Aljan Moonfire


	4. Chapter II - Fox Fire

**Aljan Moonfire does not own Naruto or any other recognizable references. **

* * *

_**Chapter II – Fox Fire**_

* * *

**Forty-five minutes earlier…**

It did not take long for the small squad of Anbu to determine that something was wrong. For one, the shift before them wasn't there to greet them and confirm the status of the one they were supposed to be protecting. That was only the clearest sign. On further inspection, it became clear that the watcher shift wasn't the only thing missing - the child was too.

The orders of the captain were immediate, anger attempting to suffuse his voice and only partly succeeding. "Saru, Tori, hold this location and search for anything suspicious, and report immediately if anything is; Neko, report this to Hokage-sama; Taka, Hebi, you're with me. We'll be tracking down any traces left by whoever took her." The tall figure in the dog mask barked out his orders rapid-fire.

"Hai, Inu-taichou!"

The figure in the cat mask disappeared in the direction of the Hokage's residence, and the monkey and bird masked individuals began another perimeter search of the area before moving to search the entire building as well. Left on the roof with the captain of the squad, the hawk and snake masked ninja watched as Inu bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood and flipped rapidly through a series of hand signs before slamming his palm into the tiled roof.

A spiraling series of seals spread out from beneath the man's hand as he whispered, "**Kuchiyose no jutsu**." (Summoning Technique). When they reached a certain point they were enveloped in smoke that exploded to cover the area above the seals. It then rapidly dispersed to show what had been summoned.

A tiny, delicate looking pug was revealed. It wore a small Konoha hitai-ate tied above his ears and an appropriately sized blue vest with a white henohenomoheji sign on the back. The tiny pug then raised his paw and said, "Yo," in a surprisingly deep voice for a dog so small.

"Yo." The Anbu captain raised a hand in greeting as well, and then continued, "Pakkun, I need your help – someone has taken Uzumaki Noriko, and I need you to track them, and her, down."

The pug nodded and said, "You got it, Boss."

"The apartment through that balcony," Inu gestured to it, "has both scents. Get to work."

The dog yipped sharply before vanishing first into the apartment, and then into the night, nose working furiously. Inu, Taka, and Hebi all followed rapidly.

.-.

Blinking slowly in shock, Noriko stared dumbly at the form the Kyuubi had taken. "Become…your…heir?" She slowly repeated what had just been said, the words not quite registering.

Waiting patiently for the small girl to regain her composure the Kyuubi nodded in confirmation. "**Yes kit, My Heir.**"

Ever so slowly the girl tilted her head in slight confusion, "What's an heir?" Noriko asked rather blankly.

The kitsune deadpanned for a moment before chuckling. "**An heir, Noriko, is one who inherits; it is someone you bequeath things to when you die – things like your physical things, or your position, in the case of rulers. Another word for it, would be a 'successor' or – and this is where the word comes from – an 'inheritor.**"

"And you want _me_ to be _yours_?" the girl's eyes had mostly cleared of their dumbfounded shock and stared straight at the fox, looking for any kind of deception in her eyes and movements.

"**Yes.**" That was one thing the Kyuubi was now sure of.

"Why! And what exactly do you want me to 'inherit' anyway," she added suspiciously.

"**Because I, we, really…**" she hesitated slightly before continuing, "**We have no other choice, Noriko.**" The Kyuubi cast regretful eyes down to meet the human child's questioning gaze and then looked away, bringing her hand up to rest on the slim black collar that was wrapped around her neck and had somehow gone unnoticed until now. "**You are about to die and I…I…I am facing what could be the end of my existence as well.**"

Noriko's eyes widened in surprise once again at this pronouncement, "What do you mean by that?" She asked tensely.

The Kyuubi gave a sigh and began to explain; knowing that to hold back relevant information at this point would only hinder what she was trying to do. "**I mentioned it before, did I not? That I have had previous Jinchuuriki?**"

Settling in for what promised to be a rather long story Noriko nodded in confirmation. "Yes. You said that my mother was one," she prodded.

"**Yes, I did. But this starts a bit beyond that and directly involves the first leader of this rotten village.**"

Ignoring the slur to the village, after tonight she could kind of understand that point of view, she had to question that last. "You mean the Shodaime?"

"**Yes, of course,**" she absently confirmed. "**I had been summoned by Uchiha Madara and forced against my will to help him battle the Senju, your Shodai. It was a fierce battle; I will admit that much, and one of the finest I had ever seen as fought by humans. Their battle split the earth where they fought into a great valley, and both were sorely wounded by each other. In the end though, Madara lost and ended up just barely managing to escape with his life. In order to do so, however, he abandoned me to the Senju's tender mercies." **

Noriko's eyes were wide at this personal recounting of a story she had only heard once before, from the old man.

Kyuubi smiled slightly at the innocence that still shone in the girls eyes, and continued, "**The Senju's wife was an Uzumaki, much like you are, and her maiden name was Uzumaki Mito. She was a master of human sealing techniques. As the Senju subdued me with his Mokuton techniques, the woman sealed me into her own body. I will not explain the mechanics involved right now. What is important now is that you know that if Mito had died while I was sealed inside her I would have simply been freed.**"

Noriko relaxed back into the snow as the story continued, forgetting for a moment just who was telling the story and enjoying the first time someone had ever taken the time to tell her something so clearly personal about themselves.

"**But the Senju's woman knew that as well, and so, almost sixty years later, when she realized she would soon die, she summoned her great niece - your mother - from her home village, Uzushiogakure, to become my next vessel. Your mother was no more than five or six years old at the time, I believe. The transfer **_**was**_** successful however, despite my efforts, and a few weeks later, after they had confirmed there were no apparent problems, Kushina entered the Konoha Ninja Academy. It was there that she met your father for the first time.**"

"**They used the same seal on your mother that Mito had used on herself; it just was a bit more secure and not quite as rushed. As such the same rule applied; had she died I would have been free. Now, as your mother and father grew up and eventually fell in love she taught him a few of the Uzumaki sealing techniques. He used quite a few of the concepts involved to eventually develop the seal that binds the two of us.**"

As the kitsune stopped to reflect on this Noriko looked up at her eagerly, excited to be learning something about her parents, "What happened next?" she asked, hoping to get the fox to continue.

Giving the young girl curled up next to her an amused look at the unsubtle prodding the Kyuubi obliged, "**And so it eventually came to be that you were conceived. This was celebrated mightily by your mother and father and the others that knew of your impending birth. However it also brought up a few problems for them. A Jinchuuriki's seal is most unstable at two points of their life: during childbirth and just before death. I am sure you understand.** **Just after your mother had birthed you and had yet to recover she and your father were interrupted. Whoever it was that did so managed to temporarily distract your father by putting your life in danger. The man then, while your father was ensuring your safety and your mother was too weak to fight him off, ripped open the seal and set me on Konoha.**"

Noriko gasped at this, though she had known that it was coming, eyes wide as she watched the kitsune shift uncomfortably as she continued. "**I must admit, I do not remember much after that. I vaguely remember fighting and crushing buildings and people beneath my paws but that is about it**," the bijuu carefully lied. She then paused for a moment. "**The next thing I knew I was once again sealed, this time inside of you, and have I have spent the last few years analyzing this seal.**" She finished tugging sharply on the collar again.

"I see," said Noriko, reflecting on all that the fox had said. "But that doesn't explain why you're about to die too."

"**This seal is easily one of the most complex I have ever seen.**" the bijuu said in reluctant admiration. "**It has multiple functions, but there are only two that are very important right now. The first, is that this seal forbids me from doing anything that may cause you harm - directly or indirectly - unless it is to save your life. The second binds our very souls together, making it so that when you die I too will cease to exist.**"

Noriko nodded in understanding at this.

"**However, there is a slight loophole, one your father either overlooked or didn't know enough about kitsune to give enough thought to. I can **_**give**_** you my power – as long as I am not fatally injuring you, and, in fact, doing so with every intention of permanently ensuring your wellbeing. He likely would have thought that such a thing would be impossible, but it is not. If you agree to become my heir, you would become a kitsune, likely the most powerful to ever exist. You would live for thousands of years and take up my position as the most powerful of the bijuu when in this dimension.**"

The vixen then took a deep breath and repeated the question she had asked earlier, "**Will you become my heir, Noriko?**"

The girl was more than slightly overwhelmed by the weight of what the fox was asking, but if there was one thing she had learned from her life so far it was that there was always, _always_, a catch. "So, what's the catch then, Kyuubi? What is the cost for doing this on my end?"

'_**Smart girl…**_' "**You will not get all of this at once, and even then it won't necessarily be **_**my**_** power that you are absorbing. While I do have nearly infinite stores of chakra, that will not be what I am giving you. In order to inherit what I am, I will, one by one, when I think you're ready, be giving you my tails.**"

"Your…tails?" asked the girl, confused.

"**Yes, my tails. My tails are what make me what I am. They represent what I am, as a kitsune…and as a tailed best – and yes, those are very different things. You will have to gain your own experience with them and master them yourself though. However, when the time comes for you to absorb my final tail, you will have ten of them.**"

"Ten? But you only have nine, right?"

"**Yes, but you eventually will develop the tenth and ultimate tail from your own, what used to be human, chakra. But you will have to work very hard to earn this. I will not hand my tails over to a weakling. I will only transfer them to you when I deem your body and mind ready to handle the strain; and even then it will hurt more than you can imagine.**"

The Kyuubi then closed her eyes asked for the last time, "**Will you, Namikaze-Uzumaki Noriko, become the heir of all that I am?**"

.-.

**Meanwhile…**

Half an hour after they began their search found the three Anbu and the nin-hound perched unobtrusively atop the roof of another building, blending almost completely in with the shadows of series out cropping balconies.

Pakkun woofed softly and growled before pointing a tiny paw in the direction of a building across the street. "She's in there," he stated. The building was quite a bit smaller than the one they were currently paused upon, which was understandable, considering that it was clearly a private home instead of an apartment building. "And," he sniffed again, as if to make sure, "she's bleeding…a lot. Maybe even too much."

Inu tensed, but didn't make a move quite yet. "And the one who took her?"

"Not here. He's already moved on." The tiny pug inhaled slightly once more and continued, "Judging by the age of the scent…he may very well be completely out of the village by now."

Hebi cursed quietly at this disappointing news, and Taka shifted unobtrusively. Inu didn't make any move, but his chakra shifted slightly. "Taka," the captain said, "take a look."

The other man shifted and raised a hand in a basic one handed seal and murmured, "Byakugan," quietly. If this had any outward effect, it was hidden behind the hawk mask and the enveloping cloak. He then spoke, beginning in the tone of someone giving a standard report, before trailing off in growing horror. "Three floors, all inhabitants are in the basement. Twenty-seven hostiles, all in close proximity to the girl; two have chakra above that of a civilian, one of genin level, the other high chunin. The girl is…badly injured. …They seem to be…torturing her. She is alive, but…she has lost far too much blood…I…"

His report was cut off by a sudden explosion of killing intent from the man crouched beside him. It was quickly contained, but it was still the most intense he had ever felt from his direct superior – and that was saying something.

"Is there anything else to report about the situation, Taka." They all tensed in surprise and spun into defensive positions at the sound of the meticulously controlled voice that had spoken from behind them. Sarutobi Hiruzen had no energy to spare for feeling amused at their jumpiness. It was taking all of his effort to control the surging rage he was feeling.

"Taka." He repeated, dangerously.

"Sir! There are twenty different entry points – four doors, sixteen windows – but only one entrance to the basement were they are holding her." He didn't pause for a moment in his report as two other teams of Anbu landed on the roof behind the Hokage, and he spotted another halting on an adjacent rooftop. "The girl is dangerously weakened, and may be used as a hostage. She –"

He was cut off from reporting further by an explosion of burning noise erupting from the house before them. They had less than a split second to register the sound before they were thrown back by a massive shockwave of concussive force. Pakkun was instantly dispelled by its sheer strength. But Sarutobi was instantaneously on his feet again, Inu not more than a few seconds behind him, and racing to the edge of the roof once more. They stared in horror at the sight that greeted them. A towering pillar of impossibly hot, vividly white fire was still expanding from source of the explosion – the very same building Taka had just been reporting on.

They could feel their skin blistering at the sheer heat, and it seemed to grow even more intense for a moment, before abruptly subsiding, the pillar of fire shrinking in height and width even as they watched. In moments, it was gone, and the building that had previously stood there, had vanished as well. All that remained was a small slumped form collapsed in the center of the shallow crater.

Sarutobi was at its side in an instant, blatantly ignoring the sheer heat still radiating from the ground. He knelt down slowly, heart breaking slightly as he confirmed who it was. The tiny blond girl before him was covered in stab wounds and burn torture scars, some still bleeding sluggishly, and others healing even as he watched. "Noriko…" his voice trembled slightly as he murmured her name, "Noriko, what have they done to you…?"He whispered. Only Inu was close enough to have heard him.

He carefully gathered the unnaturally still form of the girl-child into his arms, and turned to face his subordinates, "Squad 2, Squad 3, secure the perimeter, begin the investigation, and evacuate any and all residents from the block while the investigation continues, Squad 4, you're with me, Squad 1…" he looked at the three remaining members of the original squad and continued, "gather your other teammates, and track down whoever it was that took her from under our noses. You have three days to give me results before I put you back on guard duty. I need to know where the holes in our security are."

"Hai, Hokage-sama," the four squads chorused thunderously, before all but one raced away to begin their newly assigned duties. The last fell into formation around him as he raced towards the hospital.

.-.

She opened her eye and took a deep breath before immediately letting it out with a soft _whoosh_ of air. She stared blankly at the obnoxiously white ceiling for a while. Closing it again, she struggled for a moment to remember what she had been doing that would land her in a hospital of all places. The slow beeping of a heart monitor echoed abnormally loudly in her ears.

Abruptly, she noticed that she hadn't been able to open one of her eyes. Blindly raising her hand to feel what could be obstructing her left eye, she was startled to feel her fingers meet the unmistakable cloth of soft bandages. Her other eye flew open as the memories struck her.

_- the blade of a kunai slashing across her eye_ -

Now remembering, she raised her hands to her face and stared in a sort of entranced horror at the jagged scars etched deeply into the palms.

_- the weight of a grown man's body pinning her to the ground as too large fingers spread open her hands, and something - something sharp and pointy that hurt and hurt and hurt - drove through small hands, pinning them to the floor -_

Hands that dropped back to her sides as everything else that had happened on that endless night raced through her head. Her other eye fell closed again in remembered pain. One small hand made its way to rest on her stomach, clutching at the place she now knew a seal was forever etched as memories flashed behind her eyelids.

- _giant red eyes behind bars that reached up for forever and ever and ever _-

- _'__**Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune'**_ -

- _sakura and snow, but no cold_ -

- _a slim black collar around a deceptively delicate throat_ _-_

- _'__**Will you become my heir, Namikaze-Uzumaki Noriko?**__'_ -

She passed out.

- _'… I will.' _-

.-.

"_So, how do we do this, Kyuubi?" asked the girl, staring unwaveringly into the unnerving red eyes of the kitsune. _

"_**You accepting the offer of your own free will has already started the process,**__" replied the Kyuubi. "__**You have already started to become a…daughter, of sorts, to me. Right now your body is in no condition for me to transfer even my first tail to you. But our agreement cemented a sort of contract between us and it has already begun to affect the seal, see?"**_

_With a few delicate fingers she directed the girl's attention back to the slim collar around her neck. The girl stared for a few moments before she detected any clear changes. She suddenly realized that the choker was not just a slim band of black fabric but a solid band of numerous overlapping symbols that could only be seals. The only reason she noticed this was because the seals themselves were shifting and changing, and the odd seal would occasionally glow red before transforming into an entirely different symbol._

_The vixen gave a slight smile at the look of awe on the child's face before she continued with her explanation. "__**I will explain the particulars of the seal and the contract to you when we have more time. Right now what you must do is allow me to temporarily channel my consciousness through you so I may remotely assist you when you wake.**__"_

"_What exactly does that mean?" asked Noriko. While the girl was far more intelligent than most children her age, she still got a bit lost when adults started in on the high level vocabulary._

"_**What it means is that, while you are in a kind of danger that I know you are incapable of getting out of alive yourself, we can temporarily kind of…merge.**__" Holding up a hand to forestall any protests the fox continued to explain. "__**You will still be in control for the most part, but you will be heavily affected by my demonic energy. It will not allow me to take complete control of your body, but it will allow me to control some of your movements when you fight to stop you from getting yourself killed. This will allow me to help you obliterate all the mentally deficient imbeciles that thought it was a good idea to abuse MY vessel in such a way. Do you understand?**__"_

_After the explanation the girl thought about it for a time before agreeing._

"_**Now, I must first warn you that, because you are not used to so much power flowing through you, you will immediately pass out once you are safe. While you are out of it I will draw up a schedule that will get you into a good enough condition to accept one of my tails within the next few months.**__" The Kyuubi then gave her a rather sadistic smirk, "__**I hope you are prepared, Kit.**__" _

_Noriko swallowed rather nervously at the look of anticipation on the face of her new…foster mother. She then gave her head a small shake to get rid of the apprehension rising in her gut and then nodded fiercely, "I'm ready."_

_The smirk widened into a smile and the Kyuubi gave the girl a swift hug before setting her back into the snow and standing upright. "__**Good.**__" As a tide of red chakra swept the small girl out of the mindscape and back to the land of the living the fox muttered to herself, "__**I really hope you are ready for this, kittling.**__"_

_.-._

"…_die, Kyuubi!" _

_As the kunai rapidly descended to slash into the girl's unresponsive eye Noriko suddenly awoke to what was about to happen and managed to close her eye and tilt her head just far enough away from the sharp implement that it wouldn't completely carve out her eye. Feeling a warm, all-encompassing energy begin to flow into her body from the seal she began to struggle anew at her restraints even as her tormenters were blown back by sudden explosion of energy._

_Wincing at the pain in her hands the girl, at the urging of the almost sentient energy, harshly ripped one of her hands free of the kunai and then reached over to rip out the one pinning her other hand to the floor. Barely feeling that pain in her hands, the girl sprang to her flipped onto all fours, landing with an artificial grace that allowed a suddenly perfect sense of balance, despite her many wounds. The girl didn't even seem to notice the rapid regeneration of her worst wounds, focusing instead on the small crows of people that were just barely regaining their bearings after being flung all over the room by the first surge of the Kyuubi's chakra through her body. _

_Trying to suppress the over-whelming bloodlust rising in her at the sight of the mob of 'mentally deficient imbeciles' that were attempting to kill her, the girl was abandoned all effort to do so when one of them, the first it seemed to realize what had happened, shouted out, "There! The demon has revealed itself! Kill it before it kills all of us!" _

_At this shout, the people that made up her small mob of torturers almost became unrecognizable as human themselves. Mouths frothing with a madness inducing combination of fear and anger the mass of frenzied bodies hurled themselves at the small form of the girl they had kidnapped._

'_If they want a demon, then I'll give them one! Kyuubi!' the girl's voice snarled through the mindscape and was answered with confirmation of the immense creature's existence._

'_**I am here, Kittling. You'd best prepare for some fire!**__' _

_Noriko's eyes flashed a menacing red before the red aura that suffused her small frame pulsed once, powerfully, and then shifted into a roaring corona of impossibly white fire. The voice that then emerged from the young girl's throat was only partly hers._

"_**KI**__TS__**UNE**__-B__**I**__!" (FOX FIRE). The yell wasn't even acknowledged by the swiftly approaching attackers and they only had time to give brief cut off screams as the blue-white flames swiftly engulfed the building. At the fox's urging the girl swiftly followed the spreading flames, untouched by the intense heat._

_A few had not rushed forward with the others, and hesitated for a brief uncomprehending moment at the sight of the girl engulfed in the red chakra. "Impossible…" one of them muttered, as his comrades were eradicated in mere seconds. His frightened eyes met her red ones. "Impossible… What are you?!" he screamed, terrified. "Monster!"_

_Noriko's eyes were suddenly blue again, wide with a cross between shock at his words, and then fear of herself. _

"_What are you?!" He cried again._

_And Noriko __**screamed**__ as her world was engulfed by white light, flames flickering impossibly at the corners of her vision._

.-.

"…injuries had already been mostly healed by the time you got her here. The only thing that might cause problems for her is that eye. It won't be completely confirmed until she actually wakes up, but it's very likely that she'll be at least partially blind in it. More likely…she won't be able to see out of it at all. An injury like that is honestly very rare and because it also affected her temple area it's impossible to know how completely it'll affect her until she's fully aware. There is also the added complication of it being affected by the…energy that had been running through her at the time. While her energy levels have returned to normal in the rest of her body, some of…it's…chakra still remains in that eye."

Noriko, on waking once more, frowned slightly at the slightly muffled voice of the woman describing horrible injuries right outside of her door. She frowned even more as she recognized the voice of the man replying.

"And will she have any visible scaring? …Especially on her face." The Sandaime voice grew louder and clearer as she heard her door open as well. She continued to listen in slowly growing horror as she realized that the one they were speaking about was her. She opened the one eye she could to watch them as well.

"Sadly enough, yes. The person who cut into her eye must have heated the kunai as far as he could without melting it and was wearing gloves or something when they went to slice open her face. Not only will she have a clear cut scar across and on either side of the eye, across part of her nose, around over her temple and up into her hairline, but there will be thin burn scars spreading out from the original cut as well. A simple eye patch won't be able to cover it. She'll also always have those crucifixion scars through her hands, as well a few of the most severe others. I'm honestly surprised she'll be able to use her hands again at all. With the way she was pinned she should have never been able to move her fingers again."

"I suppose that cursed fox came in handy somehow then." The Kyuubi seemed to be the very definition of a mixed blessing. Without the fox she would most likely be dead by now, but she also would have likely never been in such a position if it weren't for its presence. Giving a harsh sigh, the Third turned to look at where the previously comatose girl was lying and was more than startled to meet the steady gaze of the girl's only undamaged eye. "Noriko! You're finally awake then," he said, sighing in relief, "Thank God."

Noriko slowly made to sit up, and the healer hurried forward to assist her before leaving them alone, knowing that the Sandaime had all the information they did on her condition. "Not God, Saru-jiji, Kyuubi."

"Kyu –" he cut himself of staring at her in shock, and then resignation. "…You know then?"

"Yeah." She looked at him, confused at sad for moment before asking, "Why didn't you tell me about it, Jiji?"

The old man gave a tired sigh and met the girl's gaze steadily. "Partly, it was because I wanted you to have as much of a childhood as I could give you. Originally, I had only meant for the council to know, and once I told them I made the circumstances of the Kyuubi's defeat a SS-class secret, but one of them blabbed and before I could do any damage control half the village thought you were the Kyuubi reborn." He sighed heavily as he recalled that disaster. "The other reason is that, until recently at least, you were just too young to understand the consequences of telling just anybody about it. You _are_ only six after all. I haven't exactly had much of a chance to tell you."

"…I can understand that. But… my parents?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you who they –"

"No, no. I already know who they are." As the Third gaped rather unattractively at her Noriko continued, unperturbed, "What I meant, was why you didn't tell me anything about them."

Pulling himself together he answered rather woodenly, "Once again, it's because you were too young." Frowning slightly, he continued, "Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't have bragged about who they were to someone?"

Conceding the point, the girl changed the subject. "So how long have I been out for?"

"Almost two days. With injuries like yours anyone else would have been out for at least a week, if not more."

The girl simply nodded as if she had expected something like that. The old man on the other hand still had some questions for her. "Who told you about all of this, Noriko?"

Said girl gave the old man an odd look and said, as if stating the obvious, "The Kyuubi, of course," with an innocently wide eye that belied the immensity of the revelation.

Choking on what he was about to say the Third could only make a few incoherent sputtering noises as the girl continued to explain some of what the Kyuubi had told her. Needless to say, while she told him that she and the Kyuubi and made a deal of sorts, she left out any mention of being the fox's 'heir'...partially because she herself still didn't completely understand it.

Relaxing a bit after the explanation, they sat in comfortable silence for a few long minutes before Noriko reached up to begin unwinding the bandages from around her head. When Sarutobi made to stop her she said, "Kyuubi says it's about as healed as it's ever going get and that I might as well take a look at the damage." She then continued to tug the wrappings off her head.

Sighing resignedly at the girl's stubbornness, as she finished unwrapping the bandages and removed the pad cushioning her eye, he reached over to the side table to grab a small mirror placed there for that purpose. Turning back to face her he winced slightly at the sight of the scars and, with guilty eyes, placed the mirror in her outstretched hands.

Forewarned by the Hokage's grimace, Noriko took a deep breath before she looked into the reflective surface of the mirror. It was both worse than and not as bad as she'd thought it would be. A thick pink scar carved deeply into the left side of the bridge of her nose before it skidded up over her eyelid, making it so it wouldn't open fully and giving the eye itself a lazy, half lidded quality. The scar then jerked down slightly to etch itself over the bone of her eye socket before drawing sharply off over her temple and smoothing into the hairline, where her mop of bright hair had been partially shaved away to facilitate cleaning of the wound.

Off of every part of the main scar lighter and thinner burn scars drew themselves in spider webbing blotches across her forehead and cheek. They faded into nonexistence as they reached her hair line and mouth, the latter of which thankfully allowed her to speak and other wise move her mouth normally. The eye itself no longer had a discernible iris or sclera. The entirety of the orb was a pale blue, almost white, color that reminded one of cloudy ice, with only a barely noticeable pupil of a slightly darker color that was almost imperceptible.

The entire effect was rather unnerving, and Sarutobi would be rather ashamed to admit that when the girl asked him what kind of masks she would be able to wear he was a bit relieved.

They sat and talked for a long while, as Sarutobi wouldn't have to get to the Hokage tower for a while, before the subject of Noriko's parents came up again. "Did they leave me some kind of house that I could live in? …I…don't really want to go back living in my apartment."

The Hokage nodded in sympathetic understanding before saying, "Well, it would be a bad idea to reveal who your father is to anyone by having you blatantly live where he did. Your mother rented out a flat herself, but I believe she did inherit some land from Mito-sama. I'll take a look at what it was and get back to you on that later. Is that okay?"

"It's fine." Glancing out the window Noriko couldn't help the next comment, "And don't you have a job to be getting to sometime soon?"

As she watched the Sandaime glance at the clock and realize the time she said, "Don't forget to bring me some ramen when you visit next. Hospital food sucks." The Third gave her an indulgent nod as he disappeared from the room with in a hurried shunshin technique.

She then pouted as a nurse rolled in a trolley with a tray of said hospital food.

* * *

**Author's Note**

* * *

And, the next chapter.

I hope you like the new parts of this chapter, and R & R.

~ Aljan Moonfire


	5. Chapter III - The Tower

**Aljan Moonfire does not own Naruto, or any other recognizable references.**

* * *

_**Chapter III – The Tower**_

* * *

As the Hokage looked through the records of what the Noriko's parents had left to her, he could only gape slightly in shock when he realized that Uzumaki Kushina had left her daughter Training Ground 44 and the tower in its center. While he had known that Kushina had had some land, he most certainly hadn't been expecting this.

Training Ground 44, or the Forest of Death was an extremely dangerous place, and his second emotion, after shock – he hadn't even known that anyone had ever lived there, let alone Mito-sama - was hesitation. Should he really let her live there? She could get seriously hurt, just from living in that place.

Then he thought about it some more, remembered the Kyuubi, and added on the fact that it wasn't like she wouldn't have guards to keep an eye on her…and additionally, there wasn't a civilian in the world that would be able to reach her there, and anyone below high chunin that entered that place would likely die just as messily.

The he sighed as he thought about it more, considering her personality…"She'll probably love the place to death." Sighing at his unintentional pun, he also considered what the council would have to say about this. And this brought to mind everything that had happened on that front since that night.

After he had gotten the blonde girl to the hospital, while the girl was in the emergency room, he had immediately summoned some of his best investigative Anbu agents and set them to uncover what, exactly, had happened to result in his favorite blond being scared for life. He knew very well it could have been much worse than it was. If she hadn't been able to save herself…

What was found was horrifying. The civilian council was, for the most part, entirely complicit in this. A few of them had actually perished in the explosion that Noriko had caused a week ago. The majority of the rest were currently ensconced in the TI (Torture & Interrogation) Division's cells.

It seemed that their plan had begun with what he had thought was a minor concession had given to appease the council with a couple of years after the Kyuubi attack, when things were still very hectic. It was to allow a few civilians to work at the Hokage tower. Several of the more major civilian clans had all chipped in to hire a freelance infiltration specialist had hidden him in with a few other oblivious people they sent to work in the tower. Over the course of the past year the man had slowly found out how Noriko's guard shifts were recorded and maintained. Following his orders to the letter he had secretly and slowly manipulated the shift times to include a brief period of time (no more than a few minutes) when the girl would be unguarded; that it had fallen rather coincidentally on the 10th of October, exactly six years after the Kyuubi had been defeated, was far from a coincidence.

When they received news the civilian council men and women quickly spread the news to a several people who, much like themselves, hated the child and what she contained beyond all reason. Thus followed the kidnapping (by the infiltrator himself), the torture, and the following explosion; needless to say, most of what had been the civilian council were no longer among the living.

Over a quarter of them went up in flames when the pillar of Noriko's white fire erupted from that building. And besides those that were still residing in the TI Division, the others were publicly executed for treason, conspiracy to murder one under the protection of both the Hokage and Daimyo, and the breaking of the Sandaime's Law.

After he had completed his mission, the nameless agent had immediately fled Konoha, but his lead hadn't lasted long. Inu had been hot on his trail and the man was currently being dragged back to Konoha at that very moment by the Anbu and his team. He could only imagine how hard it had been for the man to restrain himself from killing the agent on sight. The Yondaime's last surviving student knew exactly who the girl's parents were, and killing the person who made the attack possible in the first place would have undoubtedly helped relieve some of his not so inconsequential anger. But they needed him alive. They needed to know exactly how he got past their security.

But, with the civilian council all but eradicated, it was eventually decided by the shinobi council not to reinstate it. They mostly agreed that at this point such an undermining of the Hokage's authority weakened the village as a whole. In fact, the civilian council itself had not originally been an official part of the village's hierarchy. It had been established during the Second Shinobi World War, in order to free the Hokage up from the day to day concerns of managing the village in a time of war. It was never supposed last further than the end of that war, but after the Niidaime died, it had.

However, with the civilian council gone the Shinobi one now had to pick up the slack. On the Hokage's orders some of the higher ranking ninja, such as the Anbu Commander and the Head of the Hunter Nin Corps, have now taken on positions in the council in order to take on some of the work. And, after going through some of the things the civilian council had had a say in, such as what was taught at the Ninja Academy, Sarutobi could only think that the disbanding of the civilian council was an even better idea than he had originally thought. They had actually let fangirls pass their final exams, even with that ridiculous mentality? It was ridiculous. No wonder there had been so many genin casualties in the main corps over the past few years.

Turning his thoughts back to what he had originally been planning, he knew that at the very least he'd have to tell them who her mother was in order for the girl to be able to live in the Forest. Taking the deed and everything else her mother had left her with him he left to notify the council and give Noriko half of her inheritance.

.-.

Sometime after the Hokage left, and his Anbu guard with him, a subtle genjutsu dispelled in a swirl of smoke to reveal a figure that had hidden itself along the wall.

He stepped out into the middle of the room; bringing the nearly blank mask he wore into the light.

The figure then jerked as two hands clamped down on either side of his head and swiftly wrenched his head around past his left shoulder with a harsh cracking sound. Sarutobi let the corpse drop to the ground almost carelessly and stared at it for a long moment before kneeling to remove the mask from its face. His eyes narrowed further as he took in the body's appearance.

The blank blue eyes and the strands of limp blond hair attempting to escape from the body's hood marked the man as a Yamanaka. One the he didn't recognize from reports or as graduating from the academy. Then he looked at the mask, and at the small kanji written on the forehead of it.

"Ne…" he murmured. "Danzo, then." He then sighed slightly, glaring down at the dead face of the mysterious Yamanaka. "He's getting bolder." He snapped his fingers then, and an Anbu appeared, kneeling before him as he rose to his full height. "Take it to autopsy. I want to know who this, and what has been done to him. And warn them to be careful of curse seals. Then report back to the original me's guard."

"Yes, sir."

As the Anbu complied with his orders, the clone scratched absently at its check. "Well, the original will want to know about this…" It then dispersed itself, sending the memories of its short existence back to its creator.

.-.

"Well," the medic said as the green glow of medical chakra faded from the hand she had just removed from Noriko's eye, "It seems like you've recovered nicely." She continued speaking as she ignored the door opening behind her and the man who walked through it. "Once you get dressed you're free to go."

"Really?" asked Noriko in excitement as she practically bounced off the bed she had spent the last week and a half confined to.

"Really," the healer replied as she stood herself and picked up the girl's medical chart from the small table beside the bed. As she turned to leave the room she continued, "I'll just take this down to the nurse's station while you talk with Hokage-sama, alright?" She gave the girl a small smile and the Sandaime a swift bow and left.

The Hokage followed the woman with his eyes as she removed herself from the room and then turned back to his favorite blonde, bringing out the bowl ramen he had been hiding from the hospital staff as he did so. Receiving her instant attention at the sight and smell of what she had long since deemed the Food of the Gods, he quickly handed it over before she took his hand along with the ramen.

As he watched her begin to devour her favorite food, he reflected on the behavior of the woman who had just left. He was beyond grateful that the Hippocratic Oath existed. Because every medic that worked at the hospital had taken the oath at one point or another none of them could refuse to treat Noriko. As a consequence they were forced to give the girl a chance and, almost without exception, they had found that they couldn't hate her.

In their minds the Kyuubi and Noriko were two entirely different beings. They just couldn't connect the immense blood-lust and hatred they had felt from the Bijuu to the small blonde girl who was always smiling and cheerful. In fact, many of them eventually came to like her and those who were merely neutral treated her with the same honesty and respect they did all of their patients.

Shaking off the introspective thoughts he turned his attention back to the small girl and blinked in shock when he saw the child staring at an empty bowl mournfully. In order to distract her from the depressing realization the Ramen was Gone, he began to speak.

"It turns out I was right; Mito-sama did leave your mother something, and she in turn has left it to you. It's more than far enough away from the main part of the village that you won't have to worry about attacks; and on that note it may be a good idea for you to hide out there for a while. Having you in the public eye so soon after the deaths of so many civilians and the changes on the council would just be asking for trouble."

The old Hokage sighed and shook his head at the last point, and Noriko couldn't help but nod in agreement. The villagers were bad enough already. She didn't want to know what would happen if they had even more of a reason to hate her.

"Back to the original point though; the place is an old, mostly abandoned at this point, Anbu training ground called the 'Forest of Death' and includes the tower in the center."

"The…'Forest of Death'?" the girl couldn't help but ask.

"Yes. I'm sure you'll understand once you actually see the place."

.-.

The first thing she noticed was how tall the trees were. From where she was standing, just outside the chain link fence with barbed wire tops that surrounded the area, they almost seemed to go on forever. The second thing she noticed was how dark it was. The thick canopy of leaves that covered the topmost branches of the trees blocked out the sun and she could tell that the majority of the forest was forever wrapped in darkness.

The sound of the wind blowing through the trees made an eerie whistling sound and when it was accompanied by the occasional scream of a dying animal she could see why humans might find it unnerving enough to call it a 'Forest of Death'.

She turned back the Hokage to see him watching expectantly, waiting to hear what she thought of the place. "I love it!" she exclaimed honestly and the Third shook his head in bemusement. He'd heard Kushina had a similar reaction to the forest the first time she saw it. He might have suspected that the reaction was unique to the Kyuubi containers if it weren't for Mitarashi Anko's obsession with the forest as well. After all, the only other person to have ever lived in it on a permanent basis aside from Noriko was the first Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, Senju Hashirama's wife, Uzumaki Mito.

"Well, let's see go see the tower before you make your decision, my dear." He said. He then knelt down before her and said, "If we're going to make decent time, I'm going to have to carry you," he said. When Noriko gave a reluctant nod of acquiesce, he picked her up and, trailed by his ever present (and persistent) Anbu guards, sped through the gate and jumped up into the tree tops, quickly disappearing into the forest.

.-.

The tower in the center of the forest really didn't look like anything special. It towered, much like a tower should, over the old man and his charge as they landed in the clearing that surrounded it. As the girl inspected the tower as well as she could from her position in the Hokage's arms she looked a little unimpressed with its initial appearance. Then the Hokage began to speak.

"The tower has about six, maybe seven, floors all told. I myself have never been past the third one. In order to even get to that third floor you must have an invitation from an Uzumaki accepted by the seal ward that covers the tower itself."

The girl had returned her attention to the Third and as he spoke was becoming more and more impressed with the things seals could do. Before, after she first learned that the Kyuubi was held inside her, she had resolved to learn something about them herself, if only to know what was going on with her own seal as it was changed by the agreement she had made with the Kyuubi. She was now beginning to see the uses of doing so for her own benefit.

The Hokage himself, oblivious to the small girl's speculative thoughts, but glad that she was interested, continued. "It should be easy enough for you to be accepted by the ward. However; once you are I know you'll be safe here, as you are the last Uzumaki. Sadly, I won't be able to explore the rest of the tower with you today as I have to return to my…paperwork."

The girl, a bit sad that she wouldn't have any company but understanding, nodded as the man put her down and pushed open one of the tower's wide doors. As they made their way to the entrance to the third floor Sarutobi gave Noriko a bit of a tour of the first two stories. He pointed out the arena that was normally only used for the annual Chunin Exams (he had to explain what a Chunin Exam was when he mentioned this) and the surveillance room next to it as they moved out of the entrance hall. He also showed her a couple of the training rooms that took up the rest of the first floor, as well as the other doors that led to them.

The second floor mostly consisted of bedrooms set up for those who were visiting the tower but weren't allowed past the second floor. The only other thing there was a couple of spacious offices for those who had to hold meetings in the tower itself for some reason or another.

As they reached the door at the end of one of the many hallways of the second floor the Hokage turned to Noriko and said, "This is the only way - that I know of, at least - to get to the rest of the tower. Bite your finger enough for a bit of blood to come out and place your hand on the door.

The girl looked doubtfully at the utterly normal looking door but complied, biting a finger on her right hand and gingerly laying the injured appendage against the wooden door. Immediately after she did so seals, glowing a bloody red around the edges, erupted across the door from the point where her small hand had made contact with the wood. They etched themselves across the door but didn't stop there as they swiftly moved to cover the entire hall, and presumably the whole tower and the land around it with their markings. Then they paused and pulsed once before enveloping the girl with the incomprehensible sealing script as well, the words rapidly being written across her skin. The old Hokage watched in awe as they pulsed again and glowed blue for a moment before sinking into the materials that made up the tower.

The Sandaime then returned his attention to the girl as she was finally able to remove her hand from its original position on the door and slipped down to land on her knees, holding her head as if in pain with her other hand as she did so. "Are you all right, Noriko?" he asked with concern as he hovered over her hunched form, unsure of what he should do. While he knew the bare basics of sealing, as did every ninja of above chunin level, he also knew that the ward work on this tower was unsurpassed by anything else in the village except for the seal barrier surrounding it, and perhaps his successor/predecessor's house.

"I'm fine," she replied after a moment, and then continued, "It's just that, when I connected with the barrier, and it accepted me, a lot of information I wasn't really ready for seemed to almost pour into my brain." The old man calmed down a bit at this, beginning to assume that it was similar to the effect of memories returning from a shadow clone.

Then the girl continued to speak and the man's, as well as those of the invisible Anbu, eyes widened in incredulousness. "I now know exactly how to manipulate the ward; I could even stretch it to include the entire Forest of Death if I wanted to. I know exactly how many people are in the tower and how many rooms and floors it has. It's almost like I have a little living map of the place in the back of my head; I couldn't get lost here if I wanted to."

She opened her mouth to continue but then immediately closed it, realizing that she was beginning to babble. The Hokage, after a moment, suppressed his shock and began to consider the advantages and disadvantages of such a thing. He then replied, "Well, that's certainly a surprise, but a good one I think. Perhaps when I leave you could place the whole tower under the barrier, it would make you that much safer at least."

The girl thought for a moment and then agreed. The Hokage then leaned down to give the blonde a hug before saying goodbye and telling her he'll visit when he can. He then disappeared in an eruption of smoke, swiftly followed by the Anbu she had noticed when the wards connected to her.

Noriko then turned back to the door and opened it for the first time. As she had known she would, the only thing that was immediately visible were stairs that went up a few quite a few steps and then disappeared onto a balcony. She went up the stairs and stepped out onto the balcony. The giant room it overlooked took up the entirety of this – the third - floor of the tower.

The walls of the room stretched up about fourteen feet to meet with the ceiling. The balcony itself wasn't so much a balcony as a floor within a floor. It was raised about five feet off the main part of the room and reached about twelve feet into it. It was covered with a blue and green carpet and edged with a wooded rail that was broken only by the six or so small staircases that provided a way to get down to the main part of the massive room. She moved forward to lean against the rail and take in the room.

The walls themselves were bare except for evenly placed lamps, the occasional window, and the mural that covered it. The mural was made up of what seemed like a hypnotic abstract made of ribbons of every color you could ever imagine. However, as Noriko now knew, it wasn't a mural at all, but instead the matrix for the seal barrier that enveloped the entirety of the Forest of Death. Depending on what she wanted the barrier to do, the colors and patterns would almost imperceptibly shift themselves to reflect their purpose. The best part was that anyone who she invited into this room who wasn't a true seal master at the level of her great-great-aunt (who were quite rare as far as she knew) would only see what it appeared to be; an elaborate mural.

The space directly beneath the balcony was taken up by storage space. What was in each large cupboard was listed on discrete pieces of paper pined next to the doors of each. The room itself consisted of what seemed to be a spacious combination of a living room, dining room, and kitchen. One part of it was a living/family room combo that had many couches and arm chairs of varying colors and patterns spread out all over it. The carpet that covered the area was made up of warm colors, like soft red, pale yellow and dark orange, with neutral patterns that merged seamlessly with the colors and patterns of the other areas. It gave off a warm and cozy feeling, despite the size of the room.

Another part of it would have seemed to be a simple dining room area, if it weren't for the positively massive table that took up the majority of the space. It was low, like most traditional tables, but that was where the similarity ended. It was made of what looked like a sleek cherry wood and the visible whorls were shaped in graceful and undefined patterns, giving it a mysterious air. There were at least fifteen cushions surrounding the table, though she couldn't count them all accurately from where she was. The colors of area were cool and reminiscent of the ocean. The carpet and the cushions were done in various shades of blue, green, and the occasional soft gray. It was in a direct, but complimenting, contrast to the theme of the living room area.

The last part of the room was taken up by a massive and rather elaborately set up kitchen. It was clearly equipped to handle cooking for many people at the same time. The long counter lined up precisely where the carpeting of the other parts of the room ended with two openings into each of the areas placed strategically for easiest access. Various small cooking appliances (such as the microwave, toaster, and rice cooker) were set up along the counter, neatly cleaned after whenever their last use was. On the other side of the kitchen area, much like in the living and dining room areas, two staircases reached up to the balcony (for lack of a better thing to call it). However, in between the staircases, instead of storage cupboards there were the larger appliances that were missing from the counter area.

The dishwasher, oven, stove, and two refrigerators took up most of the space there. The only part of that circling wall that wasn't covered by the kitchen appliances was the fore mentioned staircases and what appeared to be a fully stocked pantry, lined with preservative seals to ensure that the food within wouldn't go bad. The kitchen didn't have as distinctive a color pattern as the other parts of the room and was mostly done up in neutral colors. The counters were made up of wood and the cabinets holding kitchen supplies and dishes that they stood on were of a soft golden-brown marble with wooden doors matching the wood of the counter. The floor was made of a dark hardwood that the girl couldn't identify and the appliances were made of a soft gray that contrasted nicely with the warm color of the woods.

She then noticed, and remembered, the two doors on the other side of the room. One, she knew went to the fourth floor. The other led to a bathroom.

Whoever lived here last must have been a generally social person who had people over visiting regularly. She reflected for a moment on the novelty of a family that cared enough about her to leave her such a marvelous place to live before pushing aside her musings for another time. She then turned back to the mural and slowly and carefully, so as to be sure she didn't make a mistake, shifted the tower's barrier so that it encompassed the whole tower, and the forest.

She'd have to remember to put the old man into the 'acceptable people' list for the seal barrier, at least for the forest and the first few floors. She had a feeling that it would be awhile before she would be able to put any more people on it. The only other people she might trust enough to give access to the upper levels of the tower were Teuchi-ji and Ayame-nee and they wouldn't be able to get past the forest to visit her as they were only civilians.

.-.

An hour later, she had finished manipulating the tower's wards to her liking. Aside from extending the 'Uzumaki invited only' ward to include the entire tower she set the pest wards on the tower to include snakes (which she suddenly severely disliked – she wondered if it was an effect of her new bond with the Kyuubi) and canceled any permission that her mother or great-great aunt may have given people to enter the tower. She left the rest of the barrier wards on the tower itself alone.

She had then considered the forest and examined what was in place on it. There weren't many but those there where were kind of impressive. There was one that induced a severe avoidance of the forest to anyone not of Uzumaki blood. Those that were affected could enter but they would _really_ not want to be there. The closer they got to the tower the more uneasy they would get, but once they were safely ensconced in the tower they would be able to relax. Most ninja listened to their instincts, as they had probably saved their lives more than once, so it acted as a fairly effective deterrent.

There were a few more dormant security wards as well; such as those that would let her know when people entered and left the forest and another that would give anyone she didn't want to be there a severe shock. It would start off as an almost unnoticeable static shock but would swiftly get deadly the longer they stayed. She awakened those and, unable to think of anything else to do to them, stepped back from the mural.

The mural seemed almost unchanged but upon a closer look a few of the colors had shifted places or brightened and a new one all-together wound its way through the ribbons of color. Satisfied, the girl moved away from the wall to get something to eat before she completed her exploration of the tower.

She was quite gratified to find some instant ramen in the pantry. As she looked over the crates of the stuff she wondered if her ramen addiction was hereditary. It might explain some things, but she quickly dismissed the thought and, taking some cup ramen with her, returned to the kitchen.

.-.

After she finished her 'dinner' (nine cups of ramen – she was too excited about exploring the rest of the tower to make to her usual dozen plus) she turned to the doors she had previously noticed from the other side of the room and opened the one leading to the next floor, making her way up yet another flight of stairs. As she had already known, the fourth floor consisted of mostly identical guest bedrooms that were spacious and comfortable enough that one could easily live in them full time; including futon or bed, dresser, closet, and bathroom. The stairs that Noriko had climbed led to a short hall that ended in a circular sitting area in the center of the fourth story.

The walls that circled the area were set with doors at regular intervals. She knew that each one lead to a room with a different color scheme, the small patch of color on each of the white doors indicating which was which. The sitting area itself was decorated with an odd red and silver color scheme that somehow worked quite well with the starkly white doors and odd color patches.

In the very center of the circular room a spiral staircase stretched up and through the ceiling. Not seeing any need to stay on the fourth floor any longer she made her way to the staircase and began to climb, swiftly putting the red and silver patterned carpet further and further beneath her feet. She quickly passed through the floor that separated the fourth and fifth stories and emerged onto a circular wooden platform edged with a rail made of the same metal as the wrought iron staircase she had just climbed.

The room on the fifth floor was a library that, much like the third floor, took up the entire space. However, the ceiling reached up much higher than the ones on that floor; in fact this room may have been able to count as two stories in and of itself. The first 'floor' was that of a normal, if large, library. Bookshelves lined the walls and ones much taller than the ones against the walls stood in seemingly random positions all over the rest of the library, stretching up to reach the exceedingly tall ceiling. She was glad for the ladders that were attached to each of the shelves; if they weren't there she wouldn't be able to reach the books on the higher shelves.

They were close to over flowing with different books and scrolls and as she went over to examine a few of them Noriko was excited to learn that a lot of them were on seals. She then noticed that there were several nooks that looked tailor-made for curling up away from the world with a good book in as well as several chairs and couches set up in groups that looked quite absurdly comfy. At the other side of the library a double-sided staircase led up to a door that undoubtedly led to the sixth floor and a balcony (a true balcony, not like the one on the third floor) that wrapped around the room at least twelve or thirteen feet up in the air. On the balcony even more bookshelves, but these ones with barely any books on them, wrapped around the room again.

Putting aside what seemed destined to become one of her favorite rooms for the moment she crossed the room and made her way up the stairs and through the door at the top of them. Behind the door were more stairs that, as she already knew, led to one of the last floors.

The sixth floor contained the more private rooms of the tower. It held the master bedroom, the master bath, private training rooms and a sealing room that her great-great aunt had probably used for her more elaborate and private sealings. Already knowing the basic layout of this floor she quickly made her way to the center of the story and the spiral staircase that led to last floor of the tower. She wanted to see it before she went to sleep.

She slowly made her way up the stairs and emerged on the other side of the ceiling. It turns out that the roof of the tower wasn't the stone it appeared to be from the outside but glass panels with carefully applied illusion seals. The entirety of the seventh and last floor was a beautiful greenhouse garden that had mostly fallen to ruin since the tower last had inhabitants; over two decades ago now from what she knew.

It was still beautiful though, and the moonlight that had begun to shine through the glass made it even more so. She resolved to clean it up at some point soon. Noriko then gave a large yawn and turned to go back down the staircase.

When she opened the door of the master bedroom ten minutes later she was almost dead on her feet. Not having the energy to examine the bedroom as closely as she had the others in the tower she gave a jaw-breaking yawn, removed her outer clothes and clambered onto the large bed, swiftly slipping beneath the covers. As she curled up in bed she didn't immediately fall asleep but closed her eyes, basking in the feeling of finally being somewhere she could truly call home.

Before she fully fell asleep she gave a thought to how the Kyuubi might react to her changed circumstances and so, pondering the fox's reaction, she fell into a deep sleep.

.-.

Noriko woke up what felt like only a few hours later to the voice of what immediately recognized as the Kyuubi. It was a bit unforgettable after all.

"**All right, Kittling. It is time to get up.**"

She felt justified in wanting to sleep more though. She'd had a tiring day after all.

"**Wake up, Noriko!**"

However, when she began to detect an annoyed tone in the vixen's voice she thought maybe it might be a good idea to get up after all. "I'm up! I'm up!" the young girl exclaimed, propping herself up on her elbows. She was surprised when her arms began to sink into the snow though and, looking up to catch sight of an enormous Sakura tree and the human form of the Kyuubi, who was looking a tad annoyed, staring down at her, she realized she was back in her mindscape.

Once she was sure that her charge was awake and aware the woman sat down in front of her and, drawing herself up into a dramatic pose made an announcement. "**Now that we have an appropriate place to train you will begin your training under me to become an appropriate heir. I hope you are prepared, Kit.**"

Seeing the look of sadistic anticipation on the face of the kitsune as she looked down at her with a smirk Noriko gulped in apprehension and began to sweat a bit. She supposed it was too late to back out of that deal, huh.

"**Yes, far, far, too late, Noriko-kit.**"

.-.

When Noriko actually woke up in the real world the next morning, she was unsure of where she was. It was far too comfortable to be the hospital; she didn't remember the creaky old bed in her apartment being this soft, and...ah well, she wanted to get more sleep anyway. Not even bothering to open her eyes she turned over and quickly dozed off again. She'd probably remember when she woke up next anyway.

'_**Get your ass out of that bed, Noriko!**_'

When the yell of her Bijuu roared through her mind the girl bolted straight up in said bed, tangling herself in her sheets. She lost her balance as she tried to untangle herself and fell right out of the bed, hitting the floor with a sharp thud that was muffled by the soft carpet that stretched over the floor and a high pitched yelp.

"What was that for, Kyuubi!" she shouted to thin air. Had anyone seen it they would have probably thought her crazy. Well, anyone who didn't know who and what she was. Then they'd, depending on who they were, either take her to the Hokage or try to kill her.

When the Kyuubi pointed this out to her kit she groaned and sighed, rubbing at the bump on her head that was already going down. '_So why did you wake me up like that Kyuubi-san?_' she asked in her mind, a bit more politely this time.

'_**Why, it's time to begin your physical training,**_' the fox replied almost cheerfully. '_**Surely you haven't forgotten last night already?**_'

"No, how could I?" the girl almost groaned.

'_**In your head kittling, in your head.**_' The kitsune replied teasingly.

Noriko just sighed and pulled on the clothes she had discarded the previous night. It was time train.

* * *

**Author's Note**

* * *

Not much changed about this chapter, I think. Hope that's alright and I'm sorry it's so late. I got distracted by college starting up again, and a new story that just wouldn't leave me alone.

But enough about that; please, R&R!

~ Aljan Moonfire


End file.
